The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 11, Page 80
TROUBADOUR SONGS.
1.
The warrior cross'd the ocean's foam,
For the stormy fields of war;
The maid was left in a smiling home,
And a sunny land afar.
His voice was heard where javelin-showers
Pour'd on the steel-clad line;
Her step was midst the summer-flowers.
Her seat beneath the vine.
His shield was cleft, his lance was riven.
And the red blood stain'd his crest;
While she—the gentlest wind of Heaven
Might scarcely fan her breast.
Yet a thousand arrows pass'd him by,
And again he cross'd the seas;
But she had died, as roses die,
That perish with a breeze!
As roses die, when the blast is come,
For all things bright and fair;—
There was Death within the smiling home,
How had Death found her there?
2.
They rear'd no trophy o'er his grave,
They bade no requiem flow;
What left they there, to tell the brave
That a warrior sleeps below?
A shiver'd spear, a cloven shield,
A helm with its white plume torn,
And a blood-stain'd turf on the fatal field,
Where a chief to his rest was borne!
He lies not where his fathers sleep,
But who hath a tomb more proud?
For the Syrian wilds his record keep,
And a banner is his shroud!F. H.
