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EVEN the bravest that are slain

    Shall not dissemble their surprise

    On waking to find valor reign,

    Even as on earth, in paradise;

    And where they sought without the sword

    Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,

    To find that the utmost reward

    Of daring should be still to dare.

    The light of heaven falls whole and white

    And is not shattered into dyes,

    The light for ever is morning light;

    The hills are verdured pasture-wise;

    The angel hosts with freshness go,

    And seek with laughter what to brave;—

    And binding all is the hushed snow

    Of the far-distant breaking wave.

    And from a cliff-top is proclaimed

    The gathering of the souls for birth,

    The trial by existence named,

    The obscuration upon earth.

    And the slant spirits trooping by

    In streams and cross- and counter-streams

    Can but give ear to that sweet cry

    For its suggestion of what dreams!

    And the more loitering are turned

    To view once more the sacrifice

    Of those who for some good discerned

    Will gladly give up paradise.

    And a white shimmering concourse rolls

    Toward the throne to witness there

    The speeding of devoted souls

    Which God makes his especial care.

    And none are taken but who will,

    Having first heard the life read out

    That opens earthward, good and ill,

    Beyond the shadow of a doubt;

    And very beautifully God limns,

    And tenderly, life's little dream,

    But naught extenuates or dims,

    Setting the thing that is supreme.

    Nor is there wanting in the press

    Some spirit to stand simply forth,

    Heroic in its nakedness,

    Against the uttermost of earth.

    The tale of earth's unhonored things

    Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;

    And the mind whirls and the heart sings,

    And a shout greets the daring one.

    But always God speaks at the end:

    'One thought in agony of strife

    The bravest would have by for friend,

    The memory that he chose the life;

    But the pure fate to which you go

    Admits no memory of choice,

    Or the woe were not earthly woe

    To which you give the assenting voice.'

    And so the choice must be again,

    But the last choice is still the same;

    And the awe passes wonder then,

    And a hush falls for all acclaim.

    And God has taken a flower of gold

    And broken it, and used therefrom

    The mystic link to bind and hold

    Spirit to matter till death come.

    'Tis of the essence of life here,

    Though we choose greatly, still to lack

    The lasting memory at all clear,

    That life has for us on the wrack

    Nothing but what we somehow chose;

    Thus are we wholly stripped of pride

    In the pain that has but one close,

    Bearing it crushed and mystified.