But what he has earned a V. C A CYNICAL story? That's not my view. The years since he fell are twain. What were his chances of coming through? Which of his friends remain? But Ermyntrude's training a splendid boy Twenty years younger than En- sign Joy. On balance, a British gain! AND Ermyntrude, did she lose her all Or find it, two years ago? O young girl-wives of the boys who fall, With your youth and your babes to show! No heart but bleeds for your widowhood. Yet Life is with you, and Life is good. No bone of _your_ bone lies low! YOUR blessedness came--as it went--in a day. Deep dread but heightened your mirth. Your idols' feet never turned to clay-- Never lit upon common earth. Love is the Game but is _not_ the Goal: You played it together, body and soul, And you had your Candle's worth. YES! though the Candle light a Shrine, And heart cannot count the cost, You are Winners yet in its tender shine! Would _they_ choose to have lived and lost? There are chills, you see, for the finest hearts; But, once it is only old Death that parts, There can never come twinge of frost. AND this be our comfort for Every Boy Cut down in his high heyday, Or ever the Sweets of the Morn- ing cloy, Or the Green Leaf wither away; So a sunlit billow curls to a crest, And shouts as it breaks at its loveliest, In a glory of rainbow spray! BE it also the making of Ermyntrude, And many a hundred more-- Compact of foibles and forti- tude-- Woo'd, won, and widow'd, in War. God, keep us gallant and unde-