The Non-Combatant

Among a race high-handed, strong of heart,

Sea-rovers, conquerors, builders in the waste,

He had his birth; a nature too complete,

Eager and doubtful, no man's soldier sworn

And no man's chosen captain; born to fail,

A name without an echo: yet he too

Within the cloister of his narrow days

Fulfilled the ancestral rites, and kept alive

The eternal fire; it may be, not in vain;

For out of those who dropped a downward glance

Upon the weakling huddled at his prayers,

Perchance some looked beyond him, and then first

Beheld the glory, and what shrine it filled,

And to what Spirit sacred: or perchance

Some heard him chanting, though but to himself,

The old heroic names: and went their way:

And hummed his music on the march to death.