University of Virginia Library


127

TO CONSCRIPTS

“Compel them to come in.”ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL

You “made a virtue of necessity”
By divine sanction; you, the loth, the grey,
The random, gentle, unconvinced; O be
The crowned!—you may, you may.
You, the compelled, be reasted! You, the caught,
Be freemen of the gates that word unlocks!
Accept your victory from that unsought,
That heavenly paradox.