VIII.

We sit here in the Promised Land That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; But 't was they won it, sword in hand, Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.[7] 235 We welcome back our bravest and our best;-- Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here! I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, But the sad strings complain, 240 And will not please the ear: I sweep them for a pæan, but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge, and die away in pain. In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 245 Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me the past is unforgiving; I with uncovered head 250 Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not.--Say not so! 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,[8] But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;[9] 255 No bar of endless night exiles the brave; And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 260 I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 265 Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 270 Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

[Footnote 7: See Shakespeare, _King Henry IV. Pt. I_ Act II Sc. 3. "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety."]

[Footnote 8: See the _Book of Numbers_, chapter xiii.]

[Footnote 9: Compare Gray's line in _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave."]