No More Learning

Brave knights you deem! You say, "The sons we are
Of puissant barons and great noblemen,
Whose honors we prolong. " You _do_ prolong them?
Your sires were soldiers brave, not prowlers base,
Rogues, miscreants, felons, village-ravagers!
They made great wars, they rode like heroes forth,
And, worthy, won broad lands and towers and towns,
So firmly won that thirty years of strife
Made of their followers dukes, their leaders kings!
While you! like jackal and the bird of prey,
Who lurk in copses or 'mid muddy beds--
Crouching and hushed, with dagger ready drawn,
Hide in the noisome marsh that skirts the way,
Trembling lest passing hounds snuff out your lair!
Listen at eventide on lonesome path
For traveller's footfall, or the mule-bell's chime,
Pouncing by hundreds on one helpless man,
To cut him down, then back to your retreats--
_You_ dare to vaunt your sires? I call your sires,
Bravest of brave and greatest 'mid the great,
A line of warriors! you, a pack of thieves!

_Athenaeum_.








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