Classic Poem

No love can quite forego the battle-field,
Since life is struggle, and life and love are one.
No soul is quiet and sheltered enough to shun
The tireless foes at work to make love yield.
Not flower and samite but lance and shield
Were dower of love; not wreath but gonfalon;
And while the bitter struggle is unwon,
Not even to faith is all the truth revealed.

Each heart its own most dreaded foe must meet,
Each heart its own conspiracies must lay,
And fight what it finds hardest to defeat.
Mine is it to meet Doubt in serried mass,
Stronger and subtler with each toilsome day;
Yet steel my soul to swear, " They shall not pass! "