The Labourer
by
For a Heracles in his fighting ire there is never the glory that follows
When ashen he lies and the poets arise to sing of the work he has done.
But to vision alive under shallows of sight, lo, the Labourer’s crown is Apollo’s,
While stands he yet in his grime and sweat–to wrestle for fruits of the Sun.
Can an enemy wither his cheer? Not you, ye fair yellow-flowering ladies,
Who join with your lords to jar the chords of a bosom heroic, and clog.
‘Tis the faltering friend, an inanimate land, may drag a great soul to their Hades,
And plunge him far from a beam of star till he hears the deep bay of the Dog.
Apparition is then of a monster-task, in a policy carving new fashions:
The winninger course than the rule of force, and the springs lured to run in a stream:
He would bend tough oak, he would stiffen the reed, point Reason to swallow the passions,
Bid Britons awake two steps to take where one is a trouble extreme!
Not the less is he nerved with the Labourer’s resolute hope: that by him shall be written,
To honour his race, this deed of grace, for the weak from the strong made just:
That her sons over seas in a rally of praise may behold a thrice vitalised Britain,
Ashine with the light of the doing of right: at the gates of the Future in trust.