In name of Him who blessed the dying thief,

I bid thee look no longer at thy past.

Which eateth like some canker at thy heart,

Redeem thy past in deeds of future good;

Deem’st thy high dreams were given thee for nought?

There is a noble doom about thy face,

A writing writ of God that telleth me

That thou art not a common ordered man,

But one ordained as holy ones of old

For some great lofty cause. Lift up thy heart,

Earth hath a need of thee, thy people call,

Wrongs long unrighted, evils long unplucked,

All cry to thee for judgment. Palsy not

The strength of thy great future brooding on

An indiscretion of thy savage past.

Arthur. And is it of God, Oh! Father, thinkest thou?

Hermit. Yea my son;

As are all hope and sunshine. What is life—

But spring unmindful of bleak winter-time,

Joying in living, mindless of old death;

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