Open and wide, but he stood there alone;
He entered the door,—his own step was all
That echoed within the deserted hall;
He stood on the roof of the ancient tower,
And for banner there waved one pale wall-flower;
And for sound of the trumpet and sound of the horn,
Came the scream of the owl on the night-wind borne;
And the turrets were falling, the vassals were flown,
And the bat ruled the halls he had thought his own.
His heart throbbed high: oh, never again
Might he soothe with sweet thoughts his spirit's pain,
He never might think on his boyish years
Till his eyes grew dim with those sweet warm tears
Which hope and memory shed when they meet.
The grave of his kindred was at his feet:
He stood alone, the last of his race,
With the cold wide world for his dwelling-place.
The home of his fathers gone to decay,—
All but their memory was pass'd away;
No one to welcome, no one to share
The laurel he no more was proud to wear:
He came in the pride of his war success
But to weep over very desolateness.
They pointed him to a barren plain
Where his father, his brothers, his kinsmen were slain;
They showed him the lowly grave, where slept
The maiden whose scarf he so truly had kept;
But they could not show him one living thing
To which his withered heart could cling. - - -
Amid the warriors of Palestine
Is one, the first in the battle-line;
It is not for glory he seeks the field,
For a blasted tree is upon his shield,
And the motto he bears is, "I fight for a grave:"
He found in—that Warrior has died with the brave!
L. E. L.
