What chores these churls do put upon the great

What chores these churls do put upon the great,
What chains, what harness; the unfettered mind,
At dawn, in all directions flying blind
Yet certain, might accomplish, might create
What all men must consult or contemplate,—
Save that the spirit, earth-born and born kind,
Cannot forget small questions left behind,
Nor honest human impulse underrate:
Oh, how the speaking pen has been impeded,
To its own cost and to the cost of speech,
By specious hands that for some thinly-needed
Answer or autograph, would claw a breach
In perfect thought . . . till broken thought receded
And ebbed in foam, like ocean down a beach.