Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,

⁠    And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,

⁠    ⁠To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,

Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,

⁠    ⁠Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,

And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,

⁠    ⁠And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,

⁠    ⁠Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,

⁠⁠⁠    ⁠    Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;

⁠Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there

⁠    ⁠But only agony, and that has ending;

⁠    ⁠    ⁠⁠⁠And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.