Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/Honor

by Florence Earle Coates

For other versions of this work, see Honor.

HONOR

DIVINE abstraction, shadowy image, dream
More vital than substantial shapes made strong
By all the tireless energies of wrong,—
Who should deny thy being would blaspheme
The power that made thy loveliness supreme,
Lending thee accents of auroral song
To comfort those who unto thee belong,
Though they go down to dark Cocytus' stream.

Patient as Time art thou, eternal one!
Yet who may change thy judgments—or destroy?
The conqueror whom wily Egypt won
Found with life's honeyed draught a bitter blent;
And Hector, fallen by the walls of Troy,
Looked up, and saw thy face, and was content.