Page:Poems, Volume 2, Coates, 1916.djvu/218



AM calling together my sons—

The children my love gave birth,

I am arming them

As the swift sand runs,

And sending them with their battle guns,

To prove their manhood's worth.

I should have, God knows, less power

To stay them by pleadings poor

Than the mother who tried

In woodland bower

To hold from knighthood—

His rightful dower—

Her boy, Sir Peredur!

For they know full well, as he knew,

How base is the touch of fear

When tyrannous wrong

Would right subdue;

And they to me

And themselves are true

When danger draweth near.