Who dared to pluck the sleeve of Hannibal,
And hale him from the shades? Who bade the man,
Indomitable of brain, return to plan
A vast revenge and vowed? Wild clarions call;
Dusk faces flame; the turreted brute-wall
Moves, tramples, overwhelms; van clashes van;
Roman, Numidian, Carthaginian;
And griefs are here, unbowed, imperial.
Who caught the world’s fierce tides? An English girl.
Shy dreamer ’neath fledged elm and apple-bloom,
With Livy or Polybius on her knee,
Whose dreams were light as dew and pure as pearl,—
Yet poignant-witted; thew’d for thought; girl-groom
Sped to her Lord across the Midland Sea.