Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 - Various - Страница 10

Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo,

Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know—

Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine—that inner shrine—to win,

Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?

Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,

When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?

Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray—

When Heart from Reason—Sense from Thought, shall rend themselves away?

Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage;

And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage?

With eyes that keep their heavenly health—the innocence of youth

To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth?

Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way—

Oh, fly the charmèd margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.

Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;

But in the glimmering twilight, see—how safely Childhood goes!