No peace for the love that must languish;
No hope for the heart that is dead;
No salve for the soul in her anguish,
To memories immortally wed.
The passion and pulse of to-morrow
Will waken a thousand to joy,
A thousand to labour and sorrow,
But not, not my boy.
Methought in the night that his prattle
Came sweet from the tombs of dead time,
'Ere flashed on my vision the battle,
The ruin, the horror, the crime.
His eyes they were wistful with wonder,
His cheeks they were rosy to kiss,
His lips they were parted asunder,
And his smile was bliss.
And then the blind hell that envelops
Two armed and unpitying hates,
When Death to the banquet-hall gallops,
And man is the mock of the Fates.
I saw him Oh, God! can I utter
What burned through mine eyelids like fire?—
Dead, dead like a dog in a gutter,
Bleeding in mire.
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