Astraea

Each the herald is who wroteHis rank, and quartered his own coat.There is no king nor sovereign stateThat can fix a hero's rate;Each to all is venerable,Cap-a-pie invulnerable,Until he write, where all eyes rest,Slave or master on his breast.I saw men go up and down,In the country and the town,With this tablet on their neck,'Judgment and a judge we seek.'Not to monarchs they repair,Nor to learned jurist's chair;But they hurry to their peers,To their kinsfolk and their dears;Louder than with speech they pray,--'What am I? companion, say.'And the friend not hesitatesTo assign just place and mates;Answers not in word or letter,Yet is understood the better;Each to each a looking-glass,Reflects his figure that doth pass.Every wayfarer he meetsWhat himself declared repeats,What himself confessed records,Sentences him in his words;The form is his own corporal form,And his thought the penal worm.Yet shine forever virgin minds,Loved by stars and purest winds,Which, o'er passion throned sedate,Have not hazarded their state;Disconcert the searching spy,Rendering to a curious eyeThe durance of a granite ledge.To those who gaze from the sea's edgeIt is there for benefit;It is there for purging light;There for purifying storms;And its depths reflect all forms;It cannot parley with the mean,--Pure by impure is not seen.For there's no sequestered grot,Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot,But Justice, journeying in the sphere,Daily stoops to harbor there.