Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/125



me to die when life is high:

The sudden thrust the quick release,

lull in the front, in harness, not

A slow decay in timorous peace.

There is not any way but this!

I would not shirk the joy of strife,

Nor lose one flash of perfect death

For sluggard years of coward life.

My breath, which is God's gift to me,

Exulting waits His high behest;

My heart, which moves at His command,

At His command will gladly rest.