Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/261



LD as the race of man,

Young as the child new-born,

From glooms Plutonian

I mount to paths of morn;

And as I move o'er vale and hill,

Before me flees the night,

For on into the darkness still

I bear my light.

The desert stayed me long

Its fancied worth to tell;

The savage, subtle and strong,

Opposed me, and he fell:

But the savage learned from conflict past

To battle and succeed,

And the foolish desert came at last

To bloom indeed.

I halt not for the maimed,

I wait not for the blind;

My foot is never lamed,

Whoe'er may lag behind: