Having set their teeth in earnest and sat tight and seen it through.

Then their brothers trooped to join them, taking danger for a bride,
Not in insolence and malice, but in honour and in pride;
Caring nought to be recorded on the muster-roll of fame,
So they struck a blow for Britain and the glory of her name.
Toil and wounds could but delight them,
Death itself could not affright them,
Who went out to fight for freedom and the red and white and blue,
While they set their teeth as firm as flint and vowed to see it through.


THE DEATH OF EUCLID

["Euclid, we are told, is at last dead, after two thousand years of
an immortality that he never much deserved."--_The Times Literary
Supplement_.]

A THRENODY for EUCLID! This is he
Who with his learning made our youth a waste,
Holding our souls in fee;
A god whose high-set crystal throne was based
Beyond the reach of tears,
Deeper than time and his relentless years!

Come then, ye Angle-Nymphs, and make lament;
Ye little Postulates, and all the throng
Of Definitions, with your heads besprent
In funeral ashes, ye who long
Worshipped the King and followed in his train;