A small still voice breathes out
With subtle sweetness silencing the loud
Hoarse vaunting of the proud,--
A song of exaltation for the vale,
And how the mountain from his height shall fail!
How God's true heroes, since this earth began,
Go sackcloth-clad through scourge and sword and scorn,
Crown'd with the bleeding thorn,
Down-trampled by man's heel as foes to man,
And whispering _Eli_, _Eli_! as they die,--
Martyrs of truth and Saint Humility.

These conquer in their fall: Persuasion flies
Wing'd, from their grave: The hearts of men are turn'd
To worship what they burn'd:
Owning the sway of Love's long-suffering eyes,
Love's sweet self-sacrifice;
The might of gentleness; the subduing force
Of wisdom on her mid-way measured course
Gliding;--not torrent-like with fury spilt,
Impetuous, o'er Himalah's rifted side,
To ravage blind and wide,
And leave a lifeless wreck of parching silt;--
Gliding by thorpe and tower and grange and lea
In tranquil transit to the eternal sea.

--Children of Light!--If, in the slow-paced course
Of vital change, your work seem incomplete,
Your conquest-hour defeat,
Won by mild compromise, by the invisible force