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Lowell, James Russell - Envy’s harsh berries and the choking pool
Identifier
004496
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Poems of James Russell Lowell
Envy’s harsh berries and the choking pool
Of the world’s scorn, are the right mother milk
To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind
And break a pathway to those unknown realms
That in the earth’s broad shadow lie enthralled.
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts;
These are their stay and when the leaden world
Sets it hard face against their fateful thought
And brute strength, like a scornful conqueror
Clangs his huge mace down in the other scale
The inspired soul but flings his patience in
And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe
One faith against a whole earth’s unbelief
One soul against the flesh of all mankind