Bushes, valleys, silently,

You fill with misty light,

Easing my soul utterly

Again, at last, at night:

Soothingly you cast your gaze

Over a dark country,

As gentle and friendly eyes

Guard my destiny.

Glad, and troubled, times

Echo in my heart,

I walk between pain and delight,

In solitude, apart.

Flow on, beloved flood: flow on!

I’ll never know joy again,

Laughter and kisses, both are gone,

And loyalty flows away.

There was a time I had as yet

Life’s most precious thing!

Ah, a man can never forget

That which torments him!

River, through the valley, murmur,

Without rest or peace,

For my singing, gently whisper,

Murmuring melodies,

When you rage on winter nights

And then overflow,

Or when around the Spring’s delights

Of bursting buds, you go.

Happy are we if, without hate,

Hidden from the world,

We hold a friend to our heart

And with him explore

What, unknown to all their art,

Ignored, by all mankind,

Through the labyrinth of the heart

Wanders in the night.

— Goethe, To The Moon

     All is a ruin where rage knew no bounds:
     Chio is levelled, and loathed by the hounds,
         For shivered yest'reen was her lance;
     Sulphurous vapors envenom the place
     Where her true beauties of Beauty's true race
         Were lately linked close in the dance.

     Dark is the desert, with one single soul;
     Cerulean eyes! whence the burning tears roll
         In anguish of uttermost shame,
     Under the shadow of one shrub of May,
     Splashed still with ruddy drops, bent in decay
         Where fiercely the hand of Lust came.

     "Soft and sweet urchin, still red with the lash
     Of rein and of scabbard of wild Kuzzilbash,
         What lack you for changing your sob—
     If not unto laughter beseeming a child—
     To utterance milder, though they have defiled
         The graves which they shrank not to rob?

     "Would'st thou a trinket, a flower, or scarf,
     Would'st thou have silver? I'm ready with half
         These sequins a-shine in the sun!
     Still more have I money—if you'll but speak!"
     He spoke: and furious the cry of the Greek,
         "Oh, give me your dagger and gun!"

-- Victor Hugo, The Greek Boy

This is the Chapel: here, my son,
Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
And heard the words that one by one
The touch of Life has turn’d to truth.
Here in a day that is not far,
You too may speak with noble ghosts
Of manhood and the vows of war
You made before the Lord of Hosts.

To set the cause above renown,
To love the game beyond the prize,
To honour, while you strike him down,
The foe that comes with fearless eyes;
To count the life of battle good,
And dear the land that gave you birth,
And dearer yet the brotherhood
That binds the brave of all the earth.—

My son, the oath is yours: the end
Is His, Who built the world of strife,
Who gave His children Pain for friend,
And Death for surest hope of life.
To-day and here the fight’s begun,
Of the great fellowship you’re free;
Henceforth the School and you are one,
And what You are, the race shall be.

God send you fortune: yet be sure,
Among the lights that gleam and pass,
You’ll live to follow none more pure
Than that which glows on yonder brass:
‘Qui procul hinc,’ the legend’s writ,—
The frontier-grave is far away—
‘Qui ante diem periit:
Sed miles, sed pro patria.’

— Sir Henry Newbolt, Clifton Chapel