Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/227

 And still, from loyalty or whim,

He would defer to my opinion, Unconscious how I envied him

His hard-earned gift of self-dominion.

For he had faced the awful King

Of Shadows in the darksome Vallev, And scorned the terrors of his sting

In many a perilous storm and sally. Firm in the faith that never tires

Or thinks that man is God-forsaken, From war's fierce seven-times-heated fires

He had emerged unseared, unshaken.

There are, alas ! no sons of mine

To serve their country in her trial, Embattled in the cause divine

Of sacrifice and self-denial ; But if there were, I could not pray

That God might shield them from disaster More strongly than I plead to-day

For this my pupil and my master.

— O.M.

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