Page:Symonds - A Problem in Modern Ethics.djvu/134

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
122
A Problem in Modern Ethics

Philip gazing on the Sacred Band of Thebans after the fight at Chæronea.[1]


"I dream'd in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream'd that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words."

And again:[2]


"I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb friendship, exalté, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men."

And once again:—[3]


"Come, I will make the continent indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;

I will make divine magnetic lands,

With the love of comrades,

With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees all along the shores of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies;
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks;

By the love of comrades,

By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!

For you, for you I am thrilling these songs."

In the company of Walt Whitman we are very far away from Gibbon and Carlier, from Tardieux and

  1. Complete Poems, p. 109. Compare, "I hear it was charged against me," ibid., p. 107.
  2. Complete Poems, p. 110.
  3. Camden edition, 1876, p. 127. Complete Poems, p. 99. Compare "Democratic Vistas," Complete Prose, p. 247, note.