Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

   Enough of Battle’s minions! let them play
   Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame: 
   Fame that will scarce reanimate their clay,
   Though thousands fall to deck some single name. 
   In sooth, ’twere sad to thwart their noble aim
   Who strike, blest hirelings! for their country’s good,
   And die, that living might have proved her shame;
   Perished, perchance, in some domestic feud,
Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine’s path pursued.