| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | IX. The Sadness of It
The Soldier’s Death-bed | | By Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835) |
| | | LIKE thee to die, thou sun!—My boyhood’s dream | |
| Was this; and now my spirit, with thy beam, | |
| Ebbs from a field of victory!—yet the hour | |
| Bears back upon me, with a torrent’s power, | |
| Nature’s deep longings: Oh! for some kind eye, | 5 |
| Wherein to meet love’s fervent farewell gaze; | |
| Some breast to pillow life’s last agony, | |
| Some voice, to speak of hope and brighter days, | |
| Beyond the pass of shadows! But I go, | |
| I that have been so loved, go hence alone; | 10 |
| And ye, now gathering round my own hearth’s glow, | |
| Sweet friends! it may be that a softer tone, | |
| Even in this moment, with your laughing glee | |
| Mingles its cadence while you speak of me: | |
| Of me, your soldier, ’midst the mountains lying, | 15 |
| On the red banner of his battles dying. | | | | |
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