To the Bitter End

He shed no tears, he made no moan;

He bore his burden; mute, endured the years,

Eating his bread as it were not a stone:

He murmured not nor faltered, shed no tears.

He toiled with neither hope nor plan;

Ambition masked in tame humility

That yokes for equal draught the ox with man,

None heard him speak again of what might be.

Not once from him a craven cry;

Patient as are the cattle of the stall,

Dumb as the tumbled clods that on him lie,

So patient, dumb, he toiled, so did he fall.