SURVIVAL

Men building ships, and women cooking meals,

The mothering girl-child with her doll in arms,

The ploughman trudging at his horse's heels,

The fires we lay, our chill at war's alarms:—

These epic, ancient gestures of the race

Have still the greatness of those great who wrought

In other days than ours, who keep their place

Along our shadowy borderlands of thought.

A word evokes them,— aye, a lifted hand

Stirs slumbrous queens whose sceptres were upraised

For life or death in what forgotten land!—

Where cowherds pass, old Grecian kine are grazed,

And many a rocking-horse and laughing boy

Lead back the tragic chariots of Troy.