Saint Anthony of old
      Could not from evil flee;
    The desert cave was found to hold
      His mortal enemy.

      And knew untiring Paul
      The world’s relentless scorn;
    While in his flesh, amid it all,
      He bore another thorn.

      Our common lot is cast
      In a great camp of pain! 
    Until the night be over-past,
      Some foe will yet remain.

* * * * *

With His Foes

      The king of beasts was dead—­
      By an old hero slain;
    Did dreams of honey for his bread
      Dance through the hero’s brain?

      Or did he chafe at this: 
      That pain is everywhere? 
    Down, down, thou fabled right to bliss,
      Life is to do and bear!

      Beguiled, enslaved, made blind,
      Yet unsubdued in will,
    He kept the old heroic mind
      To serve his country still.

      And in recovered might
      Pulled the tall pillars down,
    Died with his foes—­that was his right—­
      And built his great renown.

* * * * *

For His Foes

      Devotion all supreme
      Throbs in the mighty psalm
    Of One who filled our highest dream
      And poured His healing balm;

      Who worlds inherited
      And yet renounced them all;
    Who had not where to lay His head
      And drank the cup of gall;

      Who emptied of His power
      Became the foremost man—­
    Calm at the great prophetic hour
      Through which God’s purpose ran;

      Who in the darkest fight
      Imagination knows,
    Saluted Thee, Eternal Light,
      And died as for His foes.

* * * * *

The Master

      The Master many a day
      In pain and darkness wrought: 
    Through death to life He held His way,
      All lands the glory caught.

      And He unlocked the gain
      Shut up in grievous loss,
    And made the stairs to heaven as plain
      As His uplifted cross—­

      The stairs of pain and woe
      In all the work on earth,
    Up which the patient toilers go
      To their eternal birth.

      O Master, Master mine,
      I read the legend now,
    To work and suffer is divine,
      All radiant on Thy brow.

* * * * *

Life in Death

      Strong children of decay,
      Ye live by perishing: 
    To-morrow thrives on dead to-day,
      And joy on suffering.

      The labor of your hearts,
      Like that of brain and hands,
    Shall be for gain in other marts,
      For bread in other lands.