Whence the still and solemn gleam
Doth a strange sad contrast seem
To the anxious eyes of that pale band,
With torches wavering in every hand,
For they dread each moment the shout of war,
And the burst of the Moslem scymitar.
There is no plumed head o'er the bier to bend,
No brother of battle, no princely friend;
No sound comes back, like the sounds of yore,
Unto sweeping swords from the marble floor;
By the red fountain the valiant lie,
The flower of Provençal chivalry,
But one free step and one lofty heart,
Bear through that scene, to the last, their part.
She hath led the death-train of the brave
To the verge of his own ancestral grave;
She hath held o'er his spirit long rigid sway,
But the struggling passion must now have way.
In the cheek half seen through her mourning veil,
By turns doth the swift blood flush and fail,
The pride on the lip is lingering still,
But it shakes as a flame to the blast might thrill;
Anguish and Triumph are met at strife,
Rending the cords of her frail young life;
And she sinks at last on her warrior's bier,
Lifting her voice as if death might hear.
"I have won thy fame from the breath of wrong,
My soul hath risen for thy glory strong!
Now call me hence by thy side to be,
The world thou leav'st hath no place for me.
The light goes with thee, the joy, the worth—
Faithful and tender! Oh! call me forth!
Give me my home on thy noble heart,
Well have we loved, let us both depart!"
And pale on the breast of the Dead she lay,
The living cheek to the cheek of clay;
The living cheek!—Oh! it was not vain,
That strife of the spirit to rend its chain,
She is there at rest in her place of pride,
In death how queen-like—a glorious bride!
Joy for the freed One!—she might not stay
When the crown had fall'n from her life away;
She might not linger—a weary thing,
A dove with no home for its broken wing,
Thrown on the harshness of alien skies,
That know not its own land's melodies.
From the long heart-withering early gone;
She hath lived—she hath loved—her task is done!
