Read "The Enthusiast (Poems from Timoleon)" by Herman Melville online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him. "
Shall hearts that beat no base retreat / In youth's magnanimous years- / Ignoble hold it, if discreet / When interest tames to fears; / Shall spirits that worship light / Perfidious deem its sacred glow, / Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, / Conform and own them right?
Shall Time with creeping influence cold / Unnerve and cow? the heart / Pine for the heartless ones enrolled / With palterers of the mart?
Shall faith abjure her skies, / Or pale probation blench her down / To shrink from Truth so still, so lone / Mid loud gregarious lies?
Each burning boat in Caesar's rear, / Flames-No return through me!
So put the torch to ties though dear, / If ties but tempters be.
Nor cringe if come the night: / Walk through the cloud to meet the pall, / Though light forsake thee, never fall / From fealty to light.