Quo Musa Tendis? :: :: University of Virginia Library

How seldom it happens in these dull days,
When we're all decorous, and all behave,
That our pulses can beat at fever heat
And our deeds be sudden and bright and brave,
In the keen delight of a stand-up fight,
When the wronger falls and the wronged wins bays.

To know you are right and to say so boldly,
To prove your strength by a downright blow,
To punish and pound your foe till the ground
Is red with his blood!—but then, you know,
We “make up a visage”—: the worst of this age
Is just that we bear our wrongs so coldly.

There's a man—for the matter of that there are men—
I could deal with just as our fathers dealt
With those who defied their manly pride;
Oh! to feel the wild delight they felt
When face to face with a foe: disgrace
To inflict, and glory to win: but then

We've the honour of being so civilised,
So good, so kind and so truly wise,
And we seldom say at the present day
“Come on you—” what you can all surmise:—
If we did, we should gain! but it's all in vain,
And my villains will die unpulverised!

But if I could have what some have prayed for,
One life more to live how and when I chose,
I would ask to belong to one age when wrong
Is punished by honest unflinching blows,
When to hate's to fight in the open light,
And a dire offence is as direly paid for.