The Outcast

Soul, be your own
Pleasance and mart,
A land unknown,
A state apart.

Scowl, and be rude
Should love entice;
Call gratitude
The costliest vice.

Deride the ill
By fortune sent;
Be scornful still
If foes repent.

When curse and stone
Are hissed and hurled,
Aloof, alone
Disdain the world.

Soul, disregard
The bad, the good;
Be haughty, hard,
Misunderstood.

Be neutral; spare
No humblest lie,
And overbear
Authority.

Laugh wisdom down;
Abandon fate;
Shame the renown
Of all the great.

Dethrone the past;
Deed, vision — naught
Avails at last
Save your own thought.

Though on all hands
The powers unsheathe'
Their lightning-brands
And from beneath,

And from above
One curse be hurled
With scorn, with love
Affront the world.