Page:Felicia Hemans in the New Monthly Magazine Volume 11 1824.pdf/5



1. warrior cross'd the ocean's foam, For the stormy fields of war; The maid was left in a smiling home, And a sunny land afar.

His voice was heard where javelin-showers Pour'd on the steel-clad line; Her step was midst the summer-flowers. Her seat beneath the vine.

His shield was cleft, his lance was riven. And the red blood stain'd his crest; While she—the gentlest wind of Heaven Might scarcely fan her breast.

Yet a thousand arrows pass'd him by, And again he cross'd the seas; But she had died, as roses die, That perish with a breeze!

As roses die, when the blast is come, For all things bright and fair;— There was Death within the smiling home, How had Death found her there?

2.

They rear'd no trophy o'er his grave, They bade no requiem flow; What left they there, to tell the brave That a warrior sleeps below?

A shiver'd spear, a cloven shield, A helm with its white plume torn, And a blood-stain'd turf on the fatal field, Where a chief to his rest was borne!

He lies not where his fathers sleep, But who hath a tomb more proud? For the Syrian wilds his record keep, And a banner is his shroud!F. H.