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307

A BEATEN ARMY.

1

We have struck our last blow, we have spent our last shot now,
And we pour here in protest the last drops of life.
All—save man's honest right—we have lost, they have got now,
And theirs is the triumph where ours was the strife.

2

Ours, the blood on the bastion: our foeman's, the flag there:
His, the soil of our birth: ours, the graves he insults:
And our brave dead are dumb while their murderers brag there
Of crimes praised on earth for successful results.

3

Be it so! tho' Right Trampled be counted for Wrong,
And that pass for Right which is Evil Victorious,
Here, where Virtue is feeble, and Villany strong,
'Tis a Cause, not the fate of a Cause, that is glorious.
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4

Here, where heroes are vanquisht, where robbers are victors,
Where the Wronger the Judge is,—from Cæsar to God
Scorn'd Justice, preceded no more by her lictors,
Appeals for escape from the axe and the rod.

5

Be it so! We are saved thus from man's obligations,
For man's mere success, to the means which deduct
From pure Truth just so much as is owed to relations
With Chance, for what Chance gives—this world's usufruct.

6

Earth's Success, at the purest, with stain of the earthy
Leaves the white worth of Truth, where it touches it, less:
But what worth has Success in the cause that's unworthy?
We have fail'd? Be it so! We are pure of Success.

7

And so man puts upon us no claim, to diminish
Our claim upon God—which is perfected thus:
Here our least gain begins where their greatest must finish:
They—the debtors to Earth for what Heaven owes to us!
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8

Graves are better than crowns thus. Oh, ever and ever
This bartering Eternity's birthright to Time!
God, we give Thee, unblemisht, our frustrate endeavour:
Earth, we leave thee, unchallenged, thy share in man's crime!
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