The Hosts

Purged, with the life they left, of all     That makes life paltry and mean and small,     In their new dedication charged     With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,     That lends a light to their lusty brows     And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet,     These are the men that have taken vows,     These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, -     These are the men that are moved no more     By the will to traffic and grasp and store     And ring with pleasure and wealth and love     The circles that self is the center of;     But they are moved by the powers that force     The sea forever to ebb and rise,     That hold Arcturus in his course,     And marshal at noon in tropic skies     The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain     And drift out over the peopled plain.     They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.     Mark how their columns surge! They seem     To follow the goddess with outspread wings     That points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.     With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,     They scale the summits of the world     And fade on the farthest golden height     In fair horizons full of light.      Comrades in arms there - friend or foe -     That trod the perilous, toilsome trail     Through a world of ruin and blood and woe     In the years of the 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 strife     Sought exultation and craved excess:     To sound the wildest debauch in life     We staked our youth and its loveliness.     Let idlers argue the right and wrong     And 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 killed     Because evolving Nature willed,     And it was our pride and boast to be     The instruments of Destiny.     There was a stately drama writ     By the hand that peopled the earth and air     And set the stars in the infinite     And made night gorgeous and morning fair,     And all that had sense to reason knew     That 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 masterhand,     Each in his part as best he could,     We played it through as the author planned.