ETERNAL JUSTICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1893, 2 March 1888, Page 29

ETERNAL JUSTICE.

The man is thought a knave or fool, Or bigot plotting crime, Who for the advancement of Ills kind

Is wiser than his time. For him the hemlock shall distill ;

For him the axe be bared ; For him the gibbet shall be built,

For him the stake prepared, Him shall the scorn and wrath of men

Pursue with deadly aim ; And malice, envy, spite, and lies Shall desecrate his name. But truth shall conquer at the last,

For round and round we run, And ever the right comes uppermost, And ever is justice done. Pace through thy cell, old Socrates, Cheerily to and fro ; Trust to the impulse of thy soul,

And let the poison flow. They may shatter to earth the lamp of clay That holds a light divine, But they cannot quench the fire of thought By any such deadly wine ; They cannot blot thy spoken words From the memory of mau By all the poison ever was brewed Since time its course began. To-day abhorred, to-morrow adored, So round and round wa run, And ever the truth comes uppermost,

And ever is justice done. Plod in thy cave, gray anchorite ;

Be wiser than thy peers ; Augment the range of human power And trust to coming yeavs. They may call thee wizard and monk accursed, And load thee with dispraise ; Thou wert born five hundred years too soon

For the comfort of thy days, But not too soon for human kind ;

Time hath reward in store, Aud the demons of our sires become

The saints that we adore. The blind can ace, the slave is lord ;

So round and round we run ; And over the wrong is proved to be wrong,

And ever is justice done. Keep, Galileo, to thy thought, And never thy soul to bear ; They may gloat o'er the senseless words they

wring From the pangs of thy despair ; They may veil thy eye, but they cannot hido The sun's meridian glow : The heel of a prießt may tread thee down, And a tyrant work fchee woe ; But never a truth has been destroyed—

They may curse it and call it crime, Pervert and betray, or slander and slay

Its teachers for a time. But the snushine aye shall light the sky

As round and round we run, And the truth shall ever come uppermost,

And justice shall be done. And live there now such men as these,

With thoughts like the great of old ? Mnny have died in their misery, And left their thoughts untold ; And many live and are ranked hs mad,

And placed in the cold world's ban For sending their bright, far-seeing souls Three centuries in the van. They toil in penury and grief, Unknown, if not maligned ; Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn Of the meanest of mankind. But yet the world goes round and round, And the genial seasc ns run, And ever the truth comes uppermost, Aud ever is justice done. —Charms Macka*-.