Classic Poem

Fear not, my poet brothers, — Beauty guards
With shield of sunset and with waving wings
The self-forgetful soul of him that sings,
And draws a charmed circle round her bards.
Tradition your development retards:
Burst bands of custom, wander forth alone,
Subdue the nations, make the earth a throne,
Shake falsehood as one shakes a house of cards.

Some higher work the world's a right to ask
Than floods of flowery diction, rivers of rhyme:
Expression, after all, is but a mask
Concealing some reality sublime;
Assert your birth-right, bend ye to your task,
Inheritors of history, heirs of time.