Explore "The Queen's Men" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Valour and Innocence / Have latterly gone hence / To certain death by certain shame attended. / Envy -- ah! even to tears! -- / The fortune of their years / Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.
Scarce had they lifted up / Life's full and fiery cup, / Than they had set it down untouched before them. / Before their day arose / They beckoned it to close -- / Close in confusion and destruction o'er them.
They did not stay to ask / What prize should crown their task, / Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for; / But passed into eclipse, / Her kiss upon their lips -- / Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!