Elias: An Epic of the Ages. Whitney Orson Ferguson

      "Greatness, true greatness, mightiness of mind,

      And greater greatness, grandeur of the soul,

      Tell but one tale—capacity, not place;

      Capacity, whose sire, experience,

      Whose ancestors, innate intelligence, 160

      Original, inborn nobility,

      As oft in hut as mansion have their home.

      "'Tis not the crowning that creates the king.

      Man's proper place where God hath need of him.

      "Naught can be vain that leadeth unto light;

      Struggle and stress, not plaudit, maketh strong;

      Victor and vanquished equally may win[10],

      Climbing far heights, where fame, eternal fame,

      White as the gleaming cloak of Arctic hills,

      Rests as a mantle, fadeless, faultless, pure, 170

      On loftiest lives, whose snowy peaks, sun-crowned,

      Receive but to dispense their blessedness.

      "Eternal life demands a selfless love.

      Hampered by pride, greed, hate, what soul can grow[11]?

      Conceive a selfish God! Thou canst not, man!

      Then let it shame thee unto higher things.

      Who strives for self hates other men's success;

      Who seeks God's glory welcomes rivalry.

      Seeking, not gift, but Giver, thou shalt find

      No sacrifice but changes part for whole. 180

      "Fare on, full sure that greatest glory comes,

      And swiftest growth, from serving humankind.

      Toil on, for toil is treasure, thine for aye;

      A pauper he who boasts an empty name."

      So spake the Spirit of the Infinite[12].

      The Messenger and Mind of Holy Twain.

      Some men I found embodiments of all

      The goodness, all the greatness, I had dreamed;

      Men seeming gods, bestowing benefits

      As suns their beams, as seas and skies their showers. 190

      Others as dwarfs, as despots, by compare,

      Devoured with greed, consumed with jealousy.

      But truth taught charity, gave me to see,

      As face to face one sees familiar friend,

      Why men are not alike in magnitude.

      Some souls, than others, have more summits climbed,

      More light absorbed, more moral might evolved.

      Dowered are they with wealth from earlier spheres;

      Hence wiser, worthier, than those they lead

      Through precept's vale, up steep example's height, 200

      To where love, beauty, wealth, power, glory, reign.

      While some, innately noble, are borne down

      By weight of weaknesses inherited,

      By passions fierce, propensities depraved,

      Malific legacy of centuries,

      That much of their true worthiness obscures,

      While spirit strives with flesh for mastery,

      For higher culture and for added might.

      And yet anon such souls effulgent shine—

      As bursts the April beam through banks of cloud— 210

      In glory from which envy shades its eyes,

      While stands detraction staring, stricken dumb;

      The glory of a great intelligence,

      Which mortal mists can dim but for a time.

      Spirits, like stars, still differ in degree,

      And cannot show an even excellence,

      Unequal in their first nobility.

      Great tells of greater—littleness of less;

      Time's hills and vales[13] but type eternity.

      Truth taught me more, but bade me silent be; 220

      And I had teachers else—toil, prayer, and pain,

      With days and nights of misery's martyrdom,

      Alone and lorn in grief's Gethsemane:

      Till storm above, and earthquake underneath,

      Shook down thought's prison house, broke bolt and bar,

      And agony set inspiration free.

      'Tis thus the Great Musician tunes the harp

      That He would strike—strikes thus the harp in tune;

      Sweeping with sorrow's hand the quivering strings,

      That they may cry aloud, and haply sound 230

      A loftier and more enduring lay.