The Hosts

Purged, with the life they left, of allThat makes life paltry and mean and small,In their new dedication chargedWith something heightened, enriched, enlarged,That lends a light to their lusty browsAnd a song to the rhythm of their trampling feet,These are the men that have taken vows,These are the hardy, the flower, the élite,—These are the men that are moved no moreBy the will to traffic and grasp and storeAnd ring with pleasure and wealth and loveThe circles that self is the centre of;But they are moved by the powers that forceThe sea for ever to ebb and rise,That hold Arcturus in his course,And marshal at noon in tropic skiesThe clouds that tower on some snow-capped chairAnd drift out over the peopled plain.They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.Mark how their columns surge! They seemTo follow the goddess with outspread wingsThat points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,They scale the summits of the worldAnd fade on the farthest golden heightIn fair horizons full of light.Comrades in arms there—friend or foe—That trod the perilous, toilsome trailThrough a world of ruin and blood and woeIn the years of great decision—hail!Friend or foe, it shall matter nought;This only matters, in fine: we fought.For we were young and in love or strifeSought exultation and craved excess:To sound the wildest debauch in lifeWe staked our youth and its loveliness.Let idlers argue the right and wrongAnd weigh what merit our causes had.Putting our faith in being strong—Above the level of good and bad—For us, we battled and burned and killedBecause evolving Nature willed,And it was our pride and boast to beThe instruments of Destiny.There was a stately drama writBy the hand that peopled the earth and airAnd set the stars in the infiniteAnd made night gorgeous and morning fair,And all that had sense to reason knewThat bloody drama must be gone through.Some sat and watched how the action veered—Waited, profited, trembled, cheered—We saw not clearly nor understood,But yielding ourselves to the master hand,Each in his part as best he could,We played it through as the author planned.