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The Hosts

Purged, with the life they left, of

That makes life paltry and mean and small,

In their new dedication

With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,

That lends a light to their lusty

And a song to the rhythm of their trampling feet,

These are the men that have taken vows,

These are the hardy, the flower, the élite,—These are the men that are moved no

By the will to traffic and grasp and

And ring with pleasure and wealth and

The circles that self is the centre of;

But they are moved by the powers that

The sea for ever to ebb and rise,

That hold Arcturus in his course,

And marshal at noon in tropic

The clouds that tower on some snow-capped

And drift out over the peopled plain.

They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.

Mark how their columns surge!

They

To follow the goddess with outspread

That points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.

With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,

They scale the summits of the

And fade on the farthest golden

In fair horizons full of light.

Comrades in arms there—friend or foe—That trod the perilous, toilsome

Through a world of ruin and blood and

In the years of great decision—hail!

Friend or foe, it shall matter nought;

This only matters, in fine: we fought.

For we were young and in love or

Sought exultation and craved excess:

To sound the wildest debauch in

We staked our youth and its loveliness.

Let idlers argue the right and

And weigh what merit our causes had.

Putting our faith in being strong—Above the level of good and bad—For us, we battled and burned and

Because evolving Nature willed,

And it was our pride and boast to

The instruments of Destiny.

There was a stately drama

By the hand that peopled the earth and

And set the stars in the

And made night gorgeous and morning fair,

And all that had sense to reason

That bloody drama must be gone through.

Some sat and watched how the action veered—Waited, profited, trembled, cheered—We saw not clearly nor understood,

But yielding ourselves to the master hand,

Each in his part as best he could,

We played it through as the author planned.

Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.

Form: couplets and quatrains.15.

Arcturus: bright star ("bear watcher") in the

Boö\;tes.

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Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger (22 June 1888 – 4 July 1916) was an American war poet who fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, serving in …

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