Please Come With Me

There is no greater life than to have heard and heeded the call.  A singular obsession calling your better self to every moment and every task your hand is set to.  The work goes on and on and the further down the row the fewer backs are counted.  Backs scared from toil in cosmic wars and battle waged—and faith engaged.  As each day the signal calls, and fewer still take up the cause, and slower now with aged limbs, but stronger still with spirit stout, the row is hoed, the hill made low, the valley filled, the pathway blazed.  And clearer now the bell that tolls, and more of those that line the rows, who have been to the end of field, and cheer those on that labor still—and greater still is the longing felt, for others to come and fear not the welt, but only know the greater life, lived by those who heed the fife.