Page:A midsummer holiday and other poems (IA midsummerholiday00swin).pdf/191

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A WORD FROM THE PSALMIST.
179

iv.

'Take heed, ye unwise indeed, who listen

When the wind's wings beat and shift and change;
Whose hearts are uplift, whose eyeballs glisten,
With desire of new things great and strange.
Let not dreams misguide nor any visions wrong you:
That which has been, it is now as it was then.
Is not Compromise of old a god among you?
Is not Precedent indeed a king of men?
But the windy hopes that lead mislead you,
And the sounds ye hear are void and vain,
Is a vote a coat? will franchise feed you,
Or words be a roof against the rain?