For they who died lest all that's good
And beautiful and brave and free
Should sink in Hell's obscurity,
These claim you in a brotherhood.
The lot is fallen, O child to you
To finish all they had to leave,
And by their sacrifice achieve
The manifold desires they knew.
And you shall feel their ardour burn
Like flaming fires within your heart,
In all your life they'll have a part
And all their secrets you shall learn.
They would have guided your young feet,
Kind, but so far from boyhood's day,
But death has found a surer way
Of making comradeship complete.
O all the pipes of fairyland
Shall play for you, shall play for them,
Their flame of radiant life will stem
Evil you scarce could understand.
They'll bid you raise your wondering eyes,
Till, far above you, you shall see
The Beauty that they knew might be,
Calling you from the starlit skies.
PARADISE now has many a Knight,
Many a lordkin, many lords,
Glimmer of armour, dinted and bright,
The young Knights have put on new swords.
Some have barely the down on the lip,
Smiling yet from the new-won spurs,
Their wounds are rubies, glowing and deep,
Their scars amethyst—glorious scars.