More Songs by the Fighting Men
I may not wait; I see
The hosts of Righteousness go forth to slay
The armies of a people that would turn
From all that makes man's nobler soul to burn,
And yet I feel as now I take my way
My Immortality!
Finis Coronat Opus
THOUGH I have lived as one whose soul is dead
Nor ever touched my heart-strings to awake.
Some harmony of love that else had fled
From where diviner semblance it might take;
Though I have scorned to hear when there has called
The sterner voice within that bade me rise
And spurn the sloth that held my will enthralled
And veiled my loftier vision to the skies;
This of my slumbering spirit I entreat,
That when I fall and may not rise again,
Or ever this faint heart no more shall beat,
And I have lost the stimulant of pain,
That I some vestige of renown may leave—
Some flower to which posterity may cleave.
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