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THE NON-COMBATANT

AMONG a race high-handed, strong of

heart,

Sea-rovers, conquerors, builders in the

waste,

He had his birth; a nature too complete, Eager and doubtful, no man's soldier

sworn

And no man's chosen captain; born to fail, A name without an echo: yet he too Within the cloister of his narrow days Fulfilled the ancestral rites, and kept alive The eternal fire; it may be, not in vain : For out of those who dropped a downward glance

Upon the weakling huddled at his prayers,

Perchance some looked beyond him, and then first

Beheld the glory, and what shrine it filled, And to what Spirit sacred: or perchance Some heard him chanting, though but to himself,

The old heroic names: and went their

way,

And hummed his music on the march to

death.

COMMEMORATION

I SAT by the granite pillar, and sunlight

fell

Where the sunlight fell of old,

And the hour was the hour my heart remembered well,

And the sermon rolled and rolled

As it used to roll when the place was still unhaunted,

And the strangest tale in the world was still untold.

And I knew that of all this rushing of

urgent sound

That I so clearly heard,

The green young forest of saplings

clustered round

Was heeding not one word:

Their heads were bowed in a still serried

patience

Such as an angel's breath could never have stirred.

For some were already away to the hazardous pitch,

Or lining the parapet wall,

And some were in glorious battle, or

great and rich,

Or throned in a college hall :

And among the rest was one like my own young phantom,

Dreaming for ever beyond my utmost call.

"O Youth," the preacher was crying, "deem not thou

Thy life is thine alone;

COMMEMORATION

25

Thou bearest the will of the ages, seeing

how

They built thee bone by bone,

And within thy blood the Great Age sleeps sepulchred

Till thou and thine shall roll away the stone.

"Therefore the days are coming when

thou shalt burn

With passion whitely hot;

Rest shall be rest no more; thy feet shall

spurn

All that thy hand hath got ;

And One that is stronger shall gird thee, and lead thee swiftly

Whither, O heart of Youth, thou wouldest not."

And the School passed: and I saw the living and dead

Set in their seats again,

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