Ad Finem Fideles
FAR out, far out they lie. Like stricken women weep- ing,
Eternal vigil keeping with slow and silent tread Soft-shod as are the fairies, the winds patrol the prairies, The sentinels of God about the pale and patient dead ! Above them, as they slumber in graves that none may
number, Dawns grow to day, days dim to dusk, and dusks in
darkness pass ;
Unheeded springs are born, unheeded summers brighten, And winters wake to whiten the wilderness of grass.
Slow stride appointed years across their bivouac places, With stern, devoted faces they lie, as when they lay,
In long battalions dreaming, till dawn, to eastward gleaming, Awoke the clarion greeting of the bugles to the day.
The still and stealthy speeding of the pilgrim days un- heeding,
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