Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers,
Or solitary mere,
Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers
Its waters to the weir!

Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and worry
Of spindle and of loom,
And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry
And rushing of the flame.

Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
Thou dost not toil nor spin,
But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
The meadow and the lin.

The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner,
And round thee throng and run
The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,
The outlaws of the sun.

The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,
And tilts against the field,
And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent
With steel-blue mail and shield.

Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God.

Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities
Hauntest the sylvan streams,
Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties
That come to us as dreams.

O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river
Linger to kiss thy feet!
O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever
The world more fair and sweet.

By Heaven! it is a shameful thing
That, in this age of deepening might,
There live so few whose souls dare cling
Forever to the right!
By Heaven! it is a crying sin
That, in this hour of ripening thought,
Where so much greatness lies within,
So little is outwrought.

The world is full of puling fools
Who prate of love in sickening rhymes,
Or bring stale tomes of trusty rules
To curb the chafing times;
But where be they whose prophet-souls
Outlooking on life's Ocean waves,
Do warn us of the rocks and shoals
Which else become our graves?

What care we for our father's creed?
What reck we of the ancient themes?
Is Truth less true in newer deeds
Than in decrepit dreams?
All honor to our brave old Sires—
The unforgotten, worthy dead;
Yet shall our loftier desires
Be on their dulness fed?

Give us new Truth altho' it break
Upon us with the lightning's flash!
Give us new Truth! The Nations quake
Beneath the shifting crash.
Give us new Truth! Our souls despise
This blinding rush of deadly strife.
Past forms of Truth are present lies
Which canker all our life.

Therefore, new Truth! And let it burst
Like red-hot thunderbolts on those
In whom this fair world stands a curse
With such a hell of woes!
New Truth! Which ever more shall right
Earth's wronged and patient multitude;
And robe us all in rare delight
Of deep and earnest good.