Poems: New and Old (Newbolt)/The Non-Combatant
The Non-Combatant
Among a race high-handed, strong of heart,Sea-rovers, conquerors, builders in the waste,He had his birth; a nature too complete,Eager and doubtful, no man's soldier swornAnd no man's chosen captain; born to fail,A name without an echo: yet he tooWithin the cloister of his narrow daysFulfilled the ancestral rites, and kept aliveThe eternal fire; it may be, not in vain;For out of those who dropped a downward glanceUpon the weakling huddled at his prayers,Perchance some looked beyond him, and then firstBeheld the glory, and what shrine it filled,And to what Spirit sacred: or perchanceSome heard him chanting, though but to himself,The old heroic names: and went their way:And hummed his music on the march to death.