And love of many hearts—know the true proof
Of faithfulness lies not therein. That dwells
In the lone consciousness of duty done,
And in the scorn and contumely of souls
Self-soiled with sin: the necessary hate
Of perjured and contaminated spirits
For that whose mere existence brings reproach,
Shame, and despair for something lost forever.
When thou hast won the hatred of the vile,
Then know thou hast served well thy fellow-men.
CONQUERED
In thine anger it was said:
"Would that mine enemy were dead."
Or, if thou saidest naught,
That was thy thought.
Now thou cryest, night and day:
"Mine enemy hath conquered in our fight,
In that he fled away
Into the darkness and the night,
Ere I to justice wakened and the right.
Now this through all the anguished hours I say,
As with my soul my soul doth strive:
Would God mine enemy were alive!"
BLAME
(A MEMORY OF EISLEBEN, THE PLACE OF LUTHER'S BIRTH AND DEATH)
In a far, lonely land at last I came
Unto a town made great by one great fame.
Born here, here died the noblest of his time,
