What stays the noblest memory
For all his years to keep?
Not of the foemen slaughtered,
But rescued from the deep!
Rescued with peerless daring!
O, none shall forget that sight,
When the unaimed cannon thundered
In the ghastly after-fight.
And, now, in the breast of the hero
There blooms a strange, new flower,
A blood-red, fragrant blossom
Sown in the battle-hour.
'T is not the Love of Comrades,—
That flower forever blows,—
But the brave man's Love of Courage,
The Love of Comrade-Foes.
For since the beginning of battles
On the land and on the wave,
Heroes have answered to heroes,
The brave have honored the brave.
1898.
A VISION
All round the glimmering circuit of the isle
Audibly pulsed the ocean. In the dark
Of the thick wood a voice not of its own
Might come to sharpened ears; a sound supprest,
The rustling of an armèd multitude
Who toss in sleep, or, wakening, watch for death.
Beneath the tropic stars that in strange skies
Drew close and glittered large, I saw in dream
A Soul pass hoveringly.
