United States Military Academy West Point - Howitzer Yearbook (West Point, NY)

Page 13 text:

peace and CQar. (Robert Weir, for forty-two year Professor of Drawing .It the Academy, was the painter of lhi» beautiful and striking picture on the wall of the old Chapel.) Into a Kind Storm-wrought, .1 place of quakes, all thunder scarred, helpless, degraded, desolate, peace, the Cflhitc Angel, comes. And, in her influence, hope returns, and life, And the passion of endeavor: so that, soon, Che idle ports arc insolent with heels, Che stithies roar, and the mills thrum CCIith energy and achievement; In a golden fog, A large, full-stomached faith in kindliness All over the world, the nation, in a dream. Of money, and love, and sport. Goes fattening, mellowing, dozing, rotting down Into a rich deliquium of decay. Chen, if the Gods be good, Down from their footstools, down, iHith a million-throated shouting, swoops and storms SQar, the Red Angel, the Awakener, Che Shaker of Souls and Chrones; and at her heel Crail grief, and ruin, and shame ! In wild hours, A people, haggard with defeat, Asks if there be a God; yet sets its teeth, faces calamity, and goes into the fire Another than it was. And in wild hours A people roaring ripe with victory, Sheds its old peddling aims, Approves its virtue, puts behind itself Che comfortable dream, and goes, Armored and militant, New-pithed, new-soulcd, new-visioned, up the steeps Co those great altitudes, whereat the weak, Live not. But only the strong have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve. — Henley.