Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/150

Where every pilgrim haply halts in fleeing
From God to God, accomplishing the round
Allotted, when he hath won the vantage-ground
And heights of destiny, unrolled sublime
Beneath he will behold the vales of time,
And every station where he made sad pause,
'Mid ranks unseen, breathing unheard applause,
Who helped, with touch impalpable of soul
On soul, the spirit journeying to her goal:
Nor in sad sooth unhindered by the host
Of royal rebels, whom we count for lost,
Yet who, like men, are only gold and clay;
Nor by some loathly haunters of the grey
Breath from lowlying pestilential mud,
Earth's hideous lusts leave in their filthy flood.

But some are so enamoured of dark Death,
They only long to be relieved of breath.
Yet, saving folk whom the fell Fury's goad,
Or stern Despair drives from our hard abode,
Who but a coward self-involved may crave
Unending sluggard sleep in the dull grave?
His own poor comfort so repleteth him,
One drop of earth's pale vintage can so brim
A human want we counted infinite,
Or one defeat so daunt the whim to fight,
That how God's armies fare concerns him not,
If he may lie at ease, and idly rot!