He that would conquer must a soldier be.
He that a soldier will be must be made
To bear all the hard preface of his trade,
        All the rough training must he bear
Whereby he shall the conqueror
……

All pain, all failure and all woe ­
These are but training we must undergo
Ere those heights of ourselves we full can reach
        Whence God has things to teach
And the discarnate fate that girds us round
        Still more to teach and more to wound.

With patience and with fortitude
        Bear thou thy training rude,
Support with grace thy masters that are days
        Made of pain and amaze,
Thy potion take, even it that potion look
That Socrates for his divinity took.

To Aesculape the cock immolate,
        To the Masters of thy fate
Abandon life, thyself strong above all
        Thy power to let things thee appall,
By the sole virtue of thy power set far
        Over thy power to feel fate's war.

The rest, that thing that shall remain of thee
        When land and sky and sea
Alike are mist in thy unseeing eyes,
        This shall nowise
Mater, nor all when all is thine abode,
        Nor God himself when all is God.