Again the wanderer starts out To alien battles; and we see, Beneath the welter and the rout, The ancient, tragic irony. He goes, too dumbly to be grim, Down to the dead, the chosen ones; While nations that rejected him Accept his flesh to stop the guns. Plunged in a war he never sought, Hurled at his brothers' gaping lines, Blinded, bewildered, scattered, caught -- A sudden ray of promise shines. . . . He stops -- the guerdon seems too great! Then, with a deep and trembling breath, He goes to meet a thundering fate And die, perhaps, a captain's death! Pariah, outcast -- he delights In struggles that should drive him mad. He lives upon defeat; and fights To save a home he never had. |