THE DYNASTS FORE SCEN&
Men surfeited of laying heavy hands
Upon the innocent ^
Tfie mild, the fragile, f/iŁ obstitw confetti Among the myriads of thy family. Those, too, who love the tnu\ the excellent^ And make their daily moves ti tuetody.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
They may come, will they, I am not averse,
Yet know I am but the ineffectual Shade
Of her t fie Travailler, herself a thrall
To It ; in all her labourings curbed and kinged !
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Shall such be mooted now ? Already change
Hath played strange pranks since first / brooded here.
But old Laws operate yet ; and phase and phase
Of men s dynastic and imperial moi/s
Shape on accustomed lines. Though, as for nu\
I care not how they shape \ or what they be.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES You seem to have small sense of mercy. Sire ?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Mercy I view, not urge ; — nor more than
What designate your titles Good and III*
'Tis not in me to feel with, or against,
These flesh-hinged mannikins Its hand upwind s
To click-clack off Its preadjusted laws ;
But only through my centuries to behold
Their aspects, and their movements, and their mould,
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
They are shapes that bleed, mere manni&ins or no, And each has parcel in the total WilL
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