University of Virginia Library

Sweet is the moisture of the trellis-rose
Dripping in music down through glistening leaves;
And sweeter still its fragrance that we breathe
On throwing wide our lattice to the morn.
Sweet to see thrushes bright-eyed speckle-bosomed,
Search dew-grey lawns with keen inspective glance;
And rabbits nimbly nibble tender grasses,
Or pause when startled at each other's shade.
And when the orchard boughs bend low with fruit.
With joy we watch the mounded harvest wains
Glide amid singing hedgerows smoothly by.
'Tis fair to watch hung pale in milky azure
Mist slowly closing into wandering cloud
Driven by the clean and light elastic wind;
And through that lone harmonious sunshine hum
Of unseen life mark how the floating seeds
Pass like flown fancies out beyond regard.

But sweeter than all roses, sights of birds,
Richer than fruit, more than whole lands of corn,
Fairer than glories of the brightest day,
Dearer than any old familiar sound
Of childhood hours, than every glittering joy
Thrown from the teeming fountain of the earth,
Is our impulsive answer to the call
Of Duty.

They who would be something more
Than they who feast, and laugh and die, will hear
The voice of Duty, as the note of war,
Nerving their spirits to great enterprise,
And knitting every sinew for the charge.
It makes them quit a happy silvan life
For contest in the roaring capital.
And in its ever-widening roar stand firm
And fixed amid the thunder, foot to foot
With opposition, smiting for the truth.
To such the rage of battle charms beyond
The heaviest ocean-plunges dashed on cliffs,
The tempest's fury on the grinding woods,
Or elemental crashing in the heavens:
Beyond a lover's gladness when he feels
His maiden's bosom throbbing tremulously,
Beyond a father's when he feels in hand
The rounded warmth of little firstborn's limb,
Or in beholding him grown tall and strong:
And their delight will never wane, but wax
In greatness with the roll of time, and burn
More brightly fed with noble deeds. For souls
Obedient to divine impulse, who urge
Their force in steadfastness until the rocks
Be hewn of their obstruction, till the swamp's
Insatiability be choked and bound
A hardened road for traffic and disport,
Tall giant arches stride across the flood,
Till tortured earth release its mysteries
Which straight become slaves pliant unto man,
Till labours at the desk at length result
In law: who pondering on the stars proclaim
Their size and distance and pursue their course;
Who work whatever will give greater power
Or profit man with leisure to observe
The wondrous heavens and loveliness of earth;
Who will instruct him in the truth whereby
He learns to reverence more his fellow man;
Who point his spirit to the worshipping
Imperishable things, from which he comes
To scorn the fluttering vanities of wealth
As poisoned sweets and baubles should they dim
His eyes one instant to that awful light
Wherein he moves; who do and who have done
All that has ever aided man to free
Himself, imperfectly, from grosser self
And made his seeing pure:—such souls sublime
Will never want for blessed joy in work,
Working for Duty which can never die.

Men may seem playthings of ironic fate:
One stoutly shod paces a velvet sward;
And one is forced with naked feet to climb
Sharp slaty ways alive with scorpions,
While wolfish hunger strains to catch his throat;
One lingers o'er his purple draught and laughs,
One shuddering tastes his bitter cup and groans;
But there is hope for all. Though not for all
To sail through sunny ripples to the end,
Chatting of shipwrecks as pathetic tales;
All are not born to nurse the dainty pangs
That herald love's completion, and behold
Their darlings flourish in the tempered air
Of comfort till themselves become the springs
Of a yet milder race: all are not born
To touch majestic eminence and shine
Directing spirits in their nations' sight
And radiate unformed posterity:
But through transcendent mercy all are born
To enter on a nobler heritage
Than these, if each but wills to choose aright
In serving Duty, man's prerogative:
Which is far pleasanter than paths of flowers,
Than warmest clustering of household joys,
And prouder than the proudest shouts of fame
That follow action not in conscience wrought.

Fair Duty, most unlike the blight of death,
Whose dismal presence levels men to ruin,
Lifts up his nature into rarer life.
Hers is a broad estate open to poor
And rich alike: here rudest peasant may
Move as their equal with baronial lords,
And those who serve be great as those who rule:
Here a smirched artisan who merely bolts
The plates of iron fortress, breathes the pride
Of that trained chieftain who commands its guns;
And one that points or fires a single piece
Claims honour with the mind who planned the war.

Fair Duty, hard and perilous to serve,
Exacts devotion that is absolute,
Ere she reveal the heaven of her smile;
And gnaws with misery the traitor slave
Who having known her countenance and moved
At her behest relapses into sloth,
Or drudges serf to his own base desires:—
Sworn knight, and armed with mail and sword of proof,
But coaxing brutish ignorance with praise,
And with the wasted hearts of honest men
Gorging the monster he went forth to slay.
But whoso faithfully reveres her law
As primal, and of every want supreme,
Making edged danger discipline his strength,
That changes hindrance into past delight,
Fair Duty dowers with her celestial love,
From which the mystic blessing glory grows:
And glory born of Duty is a crown
Of light.

And all thus crowned illume their work
In splendour that no earthly eye may pierce,
And know that every seed they set, and stone
They fix, and truth they reach, unite to found
A well-planned city in a governed land
That rising bases high a Temple built
Firm in its centre to the praise of God.
And each beholds his labours glorified,
Alike the toiler at the desk, a king
Upon his throne, or builder of the bridge:
The desk in lustre shines a kingly throne,
The throne diffuses radiance like a sun,
The bridge spans death—a pathway to the stars.