Dedication

Grant me a moment of peace,     Let me but open mine eyes,     Forgetting the empire of lies     And warfares majestic increase     Of national folly and hate;     Ere I return to my fate,     Grant me a moment of peace.     To what is I would turn from what seems     From a world where men fall and adore     The god that Fear shuddering bore     To Greed in the desert of dreams,     Unholy, inhuman, impure;     From the State to the loves that endure,     To what is I would turn from what seems.     No man has been richer than I,     Though he staggered with infinite gold     And bought of whatever is sold     Of the beauty that money can buy.     In the wealth that is lost in the mart     And is stored in the innermost heart     No man has been richer than I.     Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood,     Weary and hungry and lame,     And out of the multitude came     Friends who were better than good,     Friends who would not be denied     Where by the palpitant tide     Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood.     Now to my army of friends     A handful of petals I fling,     Strays of perennial spring,     Weeds, but the lover who sends     Bled that each blossom might live.     This is myself that I give     Now to my army of friends.     Comrade in exile, to you     Chiefly the gift should belong,     You who will hear in my song     Echoes of days that we knew     Blue and deep-droning and clear     Far in the hills that are dear,     Comrade in exile, to you.     Pause and remember them now,     Plunge, as you dived in the stream,     To the sweet cool depth of your dream.     The drooping, sheltering bough,     The brown rock lettered above,     The still interfusion of love,     Pause and remember them now.     There as we lay in the cave     And saw, as an eye of the dark,     The camp-fires slumbering spark,     And heard the cataract rave,     Your soul and my soul were as one;     Our life in one channel has run     There as we lay in the cave.     Forth to the task of a man!     Youth and the valour of youth,     Force and the ardour of truth     Give you a place in the van,     Love keeping step at your side     Chanting aloud as you stride     Forth to the task of a man.