| WAR shook the land where Levi dwelt, | |
| And fired the dismal wrath he felt, | |
| That such a doom was ever wrought | |
| As his, to toil while others fought; | |
| To toil, to dream—and still to dream, | 5 |
| With one day barren as another; | |
| To consummate, as it would seem, | |
| The dry despair of his old mother. | |
| |
| Far off one afternoon began | |
| The sound of man destroying man; | 10 |
| And Levi, sick with nameless rage, | |
| Condemned again his heritage, | |
| And sighed for scars that might have come, | |
| And would, if once he could have sundered | |
| Those harsh, inhering claims of home | 15 |
| That held him while he cursed and wondered. | |
| |
| Another day, and then there came, | |
| Rough, bloody, ribald, hungry, lame, | |
| But yet themselves, to Levi’s door, | |
| Two remnants of the day before. | 20 |
| They laughed at him and what he sought; | |
| They jeered him, and his painful acre; | |
| But Levi knew that they had fought, | |
| And left their manners to their Maker. | |
| |
| That night, for the grim widow’s ears, | 25 |
| With hopes that hid themselves in fears, | |
| He told of arms, and fiery deeds, | |
| Whereat one leaps the while he reads, | |
| And said he’d be no more a clown, | |
| While others drew the breath of battle.— | 30 |
| The mother looked him up and down, | |
| And laughed—a scant laugh with a rattle. | |
| |
| She told him what she found to tell, | |
| And Levi listened, and heard well | |
| Some admonitions of a voice | 35 |
| That left him no cause to rejoice.— | |
| He sought a friend, and found the stars, | |
| And prayed aloud that they should aid him; | |
| But they said not a word of wars, | |
| Or of a reason why God made him. | 40 |
| |
| And who’s of this or that estate | |
| We do not wholly calculate, | |
| When baffling shades that shift and cling | |
| Are not without their glimmering; | |
| When even Levi, tired of faith, | 45 |
| Beloved of none, forgot by many, | |
| Dismissed as an inferior wraith, | |
| Reborn may be as great as any. | |
