Page:Poems, Volume 2, Coates, 1916.djvu/120



UR days by deeds are numbered,—and by dreams,

If we dream well and nobly; for it seems

That he who would respond

By deed to what is loveliest and best,

Must, holding to the near and manifest,

Find in the things beyond,

Faith, ay, and courage, duty to fulfil,—

Hearing the higher voices calling still.

Thy youth those voices heard on many a height,

In the fresh dawn and the all-fragrant night,

For thou wast mountain-born;

And looking to the hills,—from boyhood-days

Thy comrades,—learned the wonder in their ways,

Reglorified each morn;

Gaining, with deeper draughts of upland breath,

Large images of Life and lordly Death.

And as a man but follows his lodestar,—

For our ideals make us what we are,—

Through self-effacing years,