Classic Poem

Oh, what a star is one man's steadfastness,
To reckon from, to follow, and to bless!
Thou that didst late belong
To every land but France — the unribboned Knight
To whom her honor and thine own were one:
Now, on the morrow of thy faithful fight
When once more shines the sun
And all the weak are strong, —
No less we call thee ours
That thou art doubly hers, the while she showers
On thine unhumbled head
Her penitential laurels and her flowers,
As might we on one risen from the dead: —
France, generous at last,
Impassioned nobly to retrieve her passion overpast.

Ours, too, thy champions! Who shall dare to say
The sordid time doth lack of chivalry,
When men thus all renounce, all cast away,
To walk with martyrs through a flaming sea!
Picquart! — how jealously will Life patrol
The paths of peril whither he is sent.
Zola! — too early gone!
Whose taking even Death might well repent,
Though 't was to enrich that greater Pantheon
Where dwell the spirits of the brave of soul.