THE WAR JUSTIFIED 87 



Through heroisms and deaths and sacrifices, 



Through love, faithful love and comradeship, at last 

 emancipating the soul into that other realm (of free- 

 dom and joy) into which it is permitted to no mortal to 

 enter 



Thus to realise the indissoluble compact, to reveal the 

 form of humanity. 



EDWARD CARPENTER: Towards 

 Democracy, pp. 277-8. 



Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides 

 Into the silent hollow of the past; 



What is there that abides 

 To make the next age better for the last? 



Is earth too poor to give us 



Something to live for here that shall outlive us? 

 . 



Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, 



Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. 



But stay! no age was e'er degenerate, 



Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, 



For in our likeness still we shape our fate. 

 Ah, there is something here 



Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, 



Something that gives our feeble light 



A high immunity from Night, 



Something that leaps life's narrow bars 

 To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; 

 *. 



A conscience more divine than we, 

 A gladness fed with secret tears, 

 A vexing, forward-reaching sense 

 Of some more noble permanence; . . . 



