Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/136

 ON THE DEATH OF AN INVINCIBLE SOLDIER

O what a sore campaign,

Of which men long shall tell,

Ended when he was slain—

When this our greatest fell!

For him no mould had cast

A bullet surely sped;

No falchion, welded fast,

His iron blood had shed.

Death on the hundredth field

Had failed to bring him low;

He was not born to yield

To might of mortal foe.

Even to himself unknown,

He bore the fated sword, 116