Who loves the warrior?

Who loves the warrior?
Not those he has fought for,
For those he has fought for have seen
The stains of battle on his garment.
They draw back when they learn of the deed
He has done to keep them safe.
It is better for them to keep a distance from the warrior
So the stain will not spoil the perception of their dignity.
Yet the warrior continues to give his all.
He must fight the battles to keep the souls he loves
Free from harm and free from the stain of evil,
For he is a warrior,
The only shield between good and evil.
It is only the warrior who loves the warrior.

—Sergeant Lonn Sweeney
Portland Police Bureau, Portland, Oregon

as quoted in Dr. Alexis Artwohl and Loren W. Christensen’s Deadly Force Encounters: What Cops Need to Know to Mentally and Physically Prepare for and Survive a Gunfight, Paladin Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1997, p. 10.

Opportunity by Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;

And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged

A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords

Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner

Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.

A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel—

That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this

Blunt thing—!” he snapped and flung it from his hand,

And lowering crept away and left the field.

Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,

And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout

Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,

And saved a great cause that heroic day.

"Opportunity" is reprinted from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915.