Читать книгу The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell - James Russell Lowell - Страница 59

A poet cannot strive for despotism;

His harp falls shattered; for it still must be

The instinct of great spirits to be free,

And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism:

He who has deepest searched the wide abysm

Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate,

Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate

Than truth and love is the true atheism:

Upward the soul forever turns her eyes:

The next hour always shames the hour before;

One beauty, at its highest, prophesies

That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor;

No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less,

But widens to the boundless Perfectness.