Forth from the casemate, on the plain Where honour has the world to gain, Pour forth and bravely do your part, O knights of the unshielded heart! Forth and forever forward!—out From prudent turret and redoubt, And in the mellay charge amain, To fall but yet to rise again! Captive? ah, still, to honour bright, A captive soldier of the right! Or free and fighting, good with ill? Unconquering but unconquered still! And ye, O brethren, what if God, When from Heav’n’s top he spies abroad, And sees on this tormented stage The noble war of mankind rage: What if his vivifying eye, O monks, should pass your corner by? For still the Lord is Lord of might; In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight; The plough, the spear, the laden barks, The field, the founded city, marks; He marks the smiler of the streets, The singer upon garden seats; He sees the climber in the rocks: To him, the shepherd folds his flocks. For those he loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven’s top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides. Those he approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, That with weak virtues, weaker hands, Sow gladness on the peopled lands, And still with laughter, song and shout, Spin the great wheel of earth about. But ye?—O ye who linger still Here in your fortress on the hill, With placid face, with tranquil breath, The unsought volunteers of death, Our cheerful General on high With careless looks may pass you by. XXIV NOT yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert, Where thou with grass, and rivers, and the breeze, And the bright face of day, thy dalliance hadst; Where to thine ear first sang the enraptured birds; Where love and thou that lasting bargain made. The ship rides trimmed, and from the eternal shore Thou hearest airy voices; but not yet Depart, my soul, not yet awhile depart. Freedom is far, rest far. Thou art with life Too closely woven, nerve with nerve intwined; Service still craving service, love for love, Love for dear love, still suppliant with tears. Alas, not yet thy human task is done! A bond at birth is forged; a debt doth lie Immortal on mortality. It grows— By vast rebound it grows, unceasing growth; Gift upon gift, alms upon alms, upreared, From man, from God, from nature, till the soul At that so huge indulgence stands amazed.