To Conscripts
“Compel them to come in.”
—ST. LUKE’S GOSPEL
You “made a virtue of necessity”
By divine sanction; you, the loth, the grey,
The random, gentle, unconvinced; O be
The crowned!—you may, you may.
You, the compelled, be feasted! You, the caught,
Be freemen of the gates that word unlocks!
Accept your victory from that unsought,
That heavenly paradox.