How can I serve who am too old to fight?

I cannot stand and wait

With folded hands, and lay me down at night

In restless expectation that the day

Will bring some stroke of Fate

I cannot help to stay

Once, like the spider in his patterned web,

Based on immutable law,

Boldly I spun the stands of arduous thought,

Now seeming naught,

Rent in the sudden hurricane of war.

Within my corner I will take my place,

And grant me grace

Some delicate thing to perfect and complete

With passionate contentment, as of old

Before my heart grew cold.

This in the Temple I will dedicate,

A widow’s mite,

Among more precious gifts, obscured from sight

By the majestic panoply of state.

But when triumphal candles have burned low

And valorous trophies crumbled into dust,

Perchance my gift may glow,

Still radiating some sacrificial joy

Amid the ravages of moth and dust.