IN the great Emperor’s courtyard | |
| He stood at his post on the pavement. | |
| He washed his face and dried it | |
| As the duck her wings in water. | |
| He washed his face with his tears.— | 5 |
| None saw or heard in the silence. | |
| |
| He leaned his head on the bayonet | |
| And slept for a precious moment, | |
| In the great Emperor’s courtyard | |
| He slept on his sharp-tipped bayonet. | 10 |
| |
| He dreamt that he walked on a mountain— | |
| O blue was the dream-like mountain! | |
| Brushing his hair in ringlets | |
| He walked on thinking, thinking: | |
| Why does my mother write not, | 15 |
| Or can she still be living? | |
| |
| He heard her answer softly: | |
| ‘I would like, my son, to write you, | |
| But they made me a tomb so lofty | |
| That I may not rise from beneath it. | 20 |
| Oh, rise I cannot, my Eagle! | |
| For deep below, on the bottom, | |
| They have covered my hands with earth-clods, | |
| With earth that is lying heavy.’ | |
| |
| In the great Emperor’s courtyard | 25 |
| He would have dreamt still longer | |
| But the bell on high St. Stephen’s | |
| Rang with a noisy clamour … | |
| |
| He wiped his face from the misting, | |
| His bayonet wiped he dully … | 30 |
| Blood flows on the courtyard pavement | |
| From the soldier lying dead there. | |
| |
