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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. | |
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| Happy is he who, bred and taught | 5 |
| By sleek, sufficing Circumstance— | |
| Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought, | |
| Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance— | |
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| Sees, on the threshold of his days, | |
| The old life shrivel like a scroll, | 10 |
| And to unheralded dismays | |
| Submits his body and his soul; | |
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| The fatted shows wherein he stood | |
| Foregoing, and the idiot pride, | |
| That he may prove with his own blood | 15 |
| All that his easy sires denied— | |
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| Ultimate issues, primal springs, | |
| Demands, abasements, penalties— | |
| The imperishable plinth of things | |
| Seen and unseen, that touch our peace. | 20 |
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| For, though ensnaring ritual dim | |
| His vision through the after-years, | |
| Yet virtue shall go out of him— | |
| Example profiting his peers. | |
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| With great things charged he shall not hold | 25 |
| Aloof till great occasion rise, | |
| But serve, full-harnessed, as of old, | |
| The Days that are the Destinies. | |
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| He shall forswear and put away | |
| The idols of his sheltered house; | 30 |
| And to Necessity shall pay | |
| Unflinching tribute of his vows. | |
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| He shall not plead another’s act, | |
| Nor bind him in another’s oath | |
| To weigh the Word above the Fact, | 35 |
| Or make or take excuse for sloth. | |
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| The yoke he bore shall press him still, | |
| And, long-ingrainèd effort goad | |
| To find, to fashion, and fulfil | |
| The cleaner life, the sterner code. | 40 |
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| 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! | |
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