Bond Or Free? A Double Thought Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Alone, and unwitting, we spring into birth
To battle the battle of life upon earth;
Alone, and unwilling, we drop from the strife
When freely discharged of the battle of life.

One by one:- yet is each of us found
Mingled of many, before and around,
Mingling for many, beyond and beside,
The cup of their being, whatever betide.

Ancestry, shaping the heart and the brain,
Circumstance moulding, so seldom in vain,
Teaching of others, and influences strong,
Leading, nay forcing, to right or to wrong.

Bold independence! ah, where is thy boast?
Freedom? the plough-oxen's freedom at most,-
Yoke-bent, and harnessed, and pricked with a goad,
To strain through the furrow, or drag up the load.

O Justice! O Charity! mix well your powers
To judge a just judgment of lives such as ours,-
Fated? - not quite,- though more like it, beseems,
Than moralists own, or theology dreams.

Not fate,- we may burst through the bonds of constraint;
Not destiny,- will we but fight and not faint;
Not slaves, nor plough-oxen;- but fairly free still,
If bravely we westle, and work with a will.

Talents and powers if Providence give,
Not to himself doth any man live;
Gifts,- ay, and graces, if He should deny
Not for their lack need any one die.

God is the Giver; then ask at His hand;
He giveth, or not, as His wisdom hath plann'd;
But crops are not look'd for where seeds were not sown,
And equity sitteth with Him on the throne.

So, see thou go softly,- O man that hast much!
And hope for the basest, if some must be such;
For who hath not heard that the last and the worst
May balance the best, and may rank with the first?

The Judge knoweth all, seeth all, judgeth all:
To Him as my Master I stand or I fall,
Content with one talent, if ten be withheld,
And envying no one in what he excell'd.

Each has his work, and his place, and his power,
Each has his day,- or it may be his hour,-
And we must render for all we have done
Separate reckonings, one by one.