Therefore on him I cry
To arm me: “For my delicate mind a casque,
A breastplate for my heart, courage to die,
Of thee, captain, I ask.
“Nor strengthen only; press
A finger on this violent blood and pale,
Over this rash will let thy tenderness
A while pause, and prevail.
“And shepherd-father, thou
Whose staff folded my thoughts before my birth,
Control them now I am of earth, and now
Thou art no more of earth.
“O liberal, constant, dear!
Crush in my nature the ungenerous art
Of the inferior; set me high, and here,
Here garner up thy heart.”
Like to him now are they,
The million living fathers of the War—
Mourning the crippled world, the bitter day—
Whose striplings are no more.
The crippled world! Come then,
Fathers of women with your honour in trust;
Approve, accept, know them daughters of men,
Now that your sons are dust.
LENGTH OF DAYS
to the early dead in battle
There is no length of days
But yours, boys who were children once. Of old
The past beset you in your childish ways,
With sense of Time untold!
What have you then forgone?
A history? This you had. Or memories?
These, too, you had of your far-distant dawn.
No further dawn seems his,
The old man who shares with you,
But has no more, no more. Time’s mystery
Did once for him the most that it can do:
He has had infancy.