This page needs to be proofread.
And still, from loyalty or whim,
He would defer to my opinion, Unconscious how I envied him
His hard-earned gift of self-dominion.
For he had faced the awful King
Of Shadows in the darksome Vallev, And scorned the terrors of his sting
In many a perilous storm and sally. Firm in the faith that never tires
Or thinks that man is God-forsaken, From war's fierce seven-times-heated fires
He had emerged unseared, unshaken.
There are, alas ! no sons of mine
To serve their country in her trial, Embattled in the cause divine
Of sacrifice and self-denial ; But if there were, I could not pray
That God might shield them from disaster More strongly than I plead to-day
For this my pupil and my master.
— O.M.
�� �
