| George Herbert Clarke, ed. (1873–1953). A Treasury of War Poetry. 1917. |
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| 81. The Volunteer |
| | | By Herbert Asquith |
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| HERE lies a clerk who half his life had spent | |
| Toiling at ledgers in a city grey, | |
| Thinking that so his days would drift away | |
| With no lance broken in life’s tournament: | |
| Yet ever ’twixt the books and his bright eyes | 5 |
| The gleaming eagles of the legions came, | |
| And horsemen, charging under phantom skies, | |
| Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme. | |
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| And now those waiting dreams are satisfied; | |
| From twilight to the halls of dawn he went; | 10 |
| His lance is broken; but he lies content | |
| With that high hour, in which he lived and died. | |
| And falling thus he wants no recompense, | |
| Who found his battle in the last resort; | |
| Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence, | 15 |
| Who goes to join the men of Agincourt. | |
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