Page:Records of Woman.pdf/101

Rh

Back with the dust of her son she came, When her voice had kindled that lightning flame; She came in the might of a queenly foe, Banner, and javelin, and bended bow; But a deeper power on her forehead sate— There sought the warrior his star of fate; Her eye's wild flash through the tented line Was hail'd as a spirit and a sign, And the faintest tone from her lip was caught, As a Sybil's breath of prophetic thought.

Vain, bitter glory!—the gift of grief, That lights up vengeance to find relief, Transient and faithless!—it cannot fill So the deep void of the heart, nor still The yearning left by a broken tie, That haunted fever of which we die!

Sickening she turn'd from her sad renown, As a king in death might reject his crown;