Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/22

10 And my voice rose, growing stronger and clearer, and at last I did not see anything there at all, not even the coloured mass of the dresses, but only a warm gold air all round me, and something singing softly all round me like far-off sunshiny water.

Then all at once I laughed, and, though the tears were quite full in my eyes, I could have shouted out, I felt so bold and brave and ready for it all, even for when I should have to die and be buried in the cold dark earth. And my voice rang as I said:

'Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints in the sands of time;

Footprints that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing shall take heart again.

—Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait.'

Towards the end I had grown sadder a little, and, now it was all said and over, I stood there for a moment with my head bent down looking at the ground of the room below the green-baize platform. It seemed some time, but I dare say it was only a moment, but when they all began to clap, and I looked up quickly and saw them all round me, I hated them all in my heart and could have seen them die and not stirred.—Not all! All but one: Mr. Blake. I seemed to love him a little.

And he nodded and smiled to me again with his eyes, and I smiled back to him as I went down. And after that I did not hate the others any more; for I did not think of them.

The next thing I remember was that I heard the Reverend saying:

'This prize is adjudged by Mr. Blake to Leicester, but, as he is only a new boy this term, he retires in favour of Whitman (whose recitation of Marc Antony's