Laybrother of the Society of Jesus <br /> <br /> <br />Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; <br />And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield <br />Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, <br />And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. <br />On Christ they do and on the martyr may; <br />But be the war within, the brand we wield <br />Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled, <br />Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray. <br /> <br /> Yet God (that hews mountain and continent, <br />Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment, <br />Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more) <br />Could crowd career with conquest while there went <br />Those years and years by of world without event <br />That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.<br /><br />Gerard Manley Hopkins<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-honour-of-st-alphonsus-rodriguez/
