s a spark of warmth,
While these are somewhat cold--

"Are somewhat mean and cold and slow,
Are stunted from heroic growth:
We gain but little when we prove
The worthlessness of both."

"But life is in our hands," she said;
"In our own hands for gain or loss:
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
Suffice to purge our dross?

"Too short a century of dreams,
One day of work sufficient length:
Why should not you, why should not I,
Attain heroic strength?

"Our life is given us as a blank,
Ourselves must make it blest or curst:
Who dooms me I shall only be
The second, not the first?

"Learn from old Homer, if you will,
Such wisdom as his books have said:
In one the acts of Ajax shine,
In one of Diomed.

"Honoured all heroes whose high deeds
Through life, through death, enlarge their span
Only Achilles in his rage
And sloth is less than man."

"Achilles only less than man?
He less than man who, half a god,
Discomfited all Greece with rest,
Cowed Ilion with a nod?

"He offered vengeance, lifelong grief
To one dear ghost, uncounted price:
Beasts, Trojans, adverse gods, himself,
Heaped up the sacrifice.

"Self-immolated to his friend,
Shrined in world's wonder, Homer's page,
Is this the man, the less than men
Of this degenerate age?"

"Gross from his acorns, tusky boar
Does memorable acts like his;
So for her snared offended young
Bleeds the swart lioness."

But here she paused; our eyes had met,
And I was whitening with the jeer;
She rose: "I went too far," she said;
Spoke low: "Forgive me, dear.

"To me our days seem pleasant days,
Our home a haven of pure content;
Forgive me if I said too much,
So much more than I meant.

"Homer, though greater than his gods,
With rough-hewn virtues was sufficed
And rough-hewn men: but what are such
To us who learn of Christ?"

The much-moved pathos of her voice,
Her almost tearful eyes, her cheek
Grown pale, confessed the strength of love
Which only made her speak.

For mild she was, of few soft words,
Most gentle, easy to be led,
Content to listen when I spoke,
And reverence what I said:

I elder sister by six years