For, though ensnaring ritual dim
His vision through the after-years,
Yet virtue shall go out of him:
Example profiting his peers.
With great things charged he shall not hold
Aloof till great occasion rise,
But serve, full-harnessed, as of old,
The days that are the destinies.
He shall forswear and put away
The idols of his sheltered house;
And to Necessity shall pay
Unflinching tribute of his vows.
He shall not plead another’s act,
Nor bind him in another’s oath
To weigh the Word above the Fact,
Or make or take excuse for sloth.
The yoke he bore shall press him still,
And long-ingrained effort goad
To find, to fashion, and fulfil
The cleaner life, the sterner code.
Not in the camp his victory lies—
The world (unheeding his return)
Shall see it in his children’s eyes
And from his grandson’s lips shall learn!
DIRGE OF DEAD SISTERS
Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order
(Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?)
And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter,
And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?
(Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by—
Let us now remember many honourable women,
Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.)