Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition So clear of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break agonized and clear.
Experience teacheth us
That resolution 's a sole help at need:
And this, my lord, our honour teacheth us,
That we be bold in every enterprise:
Then since there is no way, but fight or die,
Be resolute, my lord, for victory.
The true sweetness of chess, if it ever can be sweet, is to see a victory snatched, by some happy impertinence, out of the shadow of apparently irrevocable disaster.