Patient Penelope's heroic fraud,

⁠Or frank Nausicaa's innocence unawed—

In vain I challenged his opinion
⁠On these and other kindred themes;
The master-passion's rude dominion
⁠Banished them ever from his dreams.

Only of War and War's new arts he spoke,
⁠Of liquid fire and masks and poisoned smoke.
The strong unerring missile-flinger
⁠Above all poets he enthroned;
Tyrtaeus was the only singer
⁠Whose spell ungrudgingly he owned,
And deeply seamed with honorable scars
⁠He paid allegiance to no lord but Mars.

Yet can I dare to be censorious?
⁠Nay, when I honestly retrace
My life through years of ease inglorious
⁠Back to Philippi's headlong race,
Needs must I count it far the nobler part
⁠To die for country than to live for art.