With willow-withe spines
And anemic blood
Needing the transfusion of courage.
We are the "God's in His Heaven" people
Who linger in the miraged oasis
Rather than ride the imperiled
With the black-cowled horseman of doom to ask:
"What has become of the hot,
Red blood of your sires
With the unbending straightness of pines
Who answered to the challenge-call
Of the conquering lion
Rather than to the soft purring
Of the Machiavellian?"
