THE HYÆNAS

AFTER the burial-parties leave

And the baffled kites have fled; The wise hyænas come out at eve To take account of our dead.

How he died and why he died
Troubles them not a whit.

They snout the bushes and stones aside
And dig till they come to it.

They are only resolute they shall eat

That they and their mates may thrive, And they know that the dead are safer meat Than the weakest thing alive.

(For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting, And a child will sometimes stand;

But a poor dead soldier of the King

Can never lift a hand.)

They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt

Until their tushes white

Take good hold in the army shirt,
And tug the corpse to light,

And the pitiful face is shewn again
For an instant ere they close;

But it is not discovered to living men-
Only to God and to those

Who, being soulless, are free from shame,
Whatever meat they may find.

Nor do they defile the dead man's name-
That is reserved for his kind.

THE REFORMERS

1901

NOT in the camp his victory lies
Or triumph in the market-place,

Who is his Nation's sacrifice

To turn the judgment from his race.

Happy is he who, bred and taught
By sleek, sufficing Circumstance-
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance-

Sees, on the threshold of his days,
The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to unheralded dismays

Submits his body and his soul;

The fatted shows wherein he stood
Foregoing, and the idiot pride,
That he may prove with his own blood
All that his easy sires denied-

Ultimate issues, primal springs,

Demands, abasements, penalties— The imperishable plinth of things

Seen and unseen, that touch our peace.

For, though ensnaring ritual dim

His vision through the after-years,

Yet virtue shall go out of him-
Example profiting his peers.

With great things charged he shall not hold
Aloof till great occasion rise,
But serve, full-harnessed, as of old,
The Days that are the Destinies.

He shall forswear and put away
The idols of his sheltered house;
And to Necessity shall pay

Unflinching tribute of his vows.

He shall not plead another's act,
Nor bind him in another's oath
To weigh the Word above the Fact,
Or make or take excuse for sloth.

The yoke he bore shall press him still,
And, long-ingrained effort goad
To find, to fashion, and fulfil

The cleaner life, the sterner code.

Not in the camp his victory lies-
The world (unheeding his return)
Shall see it in his children's eyes

And from his grandson's lips shall learn!

THE COVENANT

1914

WE thought we ranked above the chance of ill.

Others might fall, not we, for we were wise

Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will

We let our servants drug our strength with lies.

The pleasure and the poison had its way

On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.

Yet there remains His Mercy-to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause. God help us, and make strong
Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!

THE OLD MEN

1902

THIS is our lot if we live so long and labour unto the endThat we outlive the impatient years and the much too patient friend:

And because we know we have breath in our mouth and think

we have thoughts in our head,

We shall assume that we are alive, whereas we are really dead.

We shall not acknowledge that old stars fade or brighter planets arise

(That the sere bush buds or the desert blooms or the ancient well-head dries),

Or any new compass wherewith new men adventure 'neath new skies.

We shall lift up the ropes that constrainèd our youth, to bind on our children's hands;

We shall call to the water below the bridges to return and

replenish our lands;

We shall harness horses (Death's own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands.

We shall lie down in the eye of the sun for lack of a light on

our way

We shall rise up when the day is done and chirrup, "Behold,

it is day!"

We shall abide till the battle is won ere we amble into the fray.

We shall peck out and discuss and dissect, and evert and extrude to our mind,

The flaccid-tissues of long-dead issues offensive to God and mankind

(Precisely like vultures over an ox that the Army has left behind).

We shall make walk preposterous ghosts of the glories we once created

Immodestly smearing from muddled palettes amazing pigments mismated

And our friends will weep when we ask them with boasts if our natural force be abated.

The Lamp of our Youth will be utterly out, but we shall subsist on the smell of it;

And whatever we do, we shall fold our hands and suck our gums and think well of it.

Yes, we shall be perfectly pleased with our work, and that is the Perfectest Hell of it!

This is our lot if we live so long and listen to those who love

us

That we are shunned by the people about and shamed by the Powers above us.

Wherefore be free of your harness betimes; but, being free, be assured,

That he who hath not endured to the death, from his birth he hath never endured!