Classic Poem

Day again. Is he breathing yet,
Brother? — He hangs there still.
I crept close by, where the cross is set,
Under the broken hill;
And down from his side, the drops ran wet
Where the spears had done their will.

Who would have guessed that One the worst?
Look you, how deep they lie;
Bodies of men, — bodies of men,
Over the field hard by:
Only that one nailed up alive,
For a warning; — slow to die.

Needs must he be a Man to dread.
But how should he last the day?
With his heart torn wide, and beating red,
Since the army marched away. —
What if we called him now, to know
The thing he strove to say?

He was the Man of might, be sure,
That they chose this way accurst.
And he breathes: but says no word at all,
Since one I heard, the first: —
Low, but all we could understand;
In our own tongue. — " I thirst ."