A Lover's Litanies

by Eric Mackay

xv.

And here I stand to-day with bended head,
My task undone, my garden overspread
With baneful weeds. Am I the lord thereof?
Or mine own slave, without the power to doff
My misery's badge? Am I so weak withal,
That I must loiter, though the bugle's call
Shrills o'er the moor, the far-off weltering moor,
Where foemen meet to vanquish or to fall?