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, 4 |