The Splendid Spur

NOT on the neck of prince or hound  
 Nor on a woman’s finger twin’d,  
May gold from the deriding ground  
 Keep sacred that we sacred bind:  
       Only the heel
       Of splendid steel  
 Shall stand secure on sliding fate,  
 When golden navies weep their freight.  
 
The scarlet hat, the laurell’d stave  
 Are measures, not the springs, of worth;
In a wife’s lap, as in a grave,  
 Man’s airy notions mix with earth.  
       Seek other spur  
       Bravely to stir  
The dust in this loud world, and tread
Alp-high among the whisp’ring dead.  
 
Trust in thyself,—then spur amain:  
 So shall Charybdis wear a grace,  
Grim AEtna laugh, the Libyan plain  
 Take roses to her shrivell’d face.
       This orb—this round  
       Of sight and sound—  
 Count it the lists that God hath built  
 For haughty hearts to ride a-tilt.