Page:Marlborough and other poems, Sorley, 1919.djvu/55

 If one is stronger in the limb

Or better able to work hard,

It's quite amusing to watch him

Ascending heavenward.

But if one cannot work or play

(Who loves the better part too well),

It's really sad to see the lad

Retained compulsorily in hell.

II FAILURE

We are the wasters, who have no

Hope in this world here, neither fame,

Because we cannot collar low

Nor write a strange dead tongue the same

As strange dead men did long ago.

We are the weary, who begin

The race with joy, but early fail,

Because we do not care to win

A race that goes not to the frail

And humble: only the proud come in.

We are the shadow-forms, who pass

Unheeded hence from work and play.

We are to-day, but like the grass

That to-day is, we pass away;

And no one stops to say 'Alas!'

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