Classic Poem

In that last fight upon the western hill
against the shifting face of elder ill
whence yet the horizon's daily passing bleeds,
hero, our hope that not in dusty needs
the breath should choke entrusted us to speak
some god in time, we watch'd thee strive and wreak
the deed of light, we trembling where we held
our humble tilths, and thee, that bulk compell'd,
high in the golden limbeck of the west
as whom the hour should momently invest
Hesperian, flesh exempt from blight and frost:
and the mount smoked and trembled, and thou wert lost.
Hero, alas, what traitor wind of fear
or mortal weariness of that dread sphere
touch'd thee and took, that we have never seen
thy glory, and our wintry musings ween
how somewhere lone thou art laid, untended, stark
a naked corpse under the triumphing dark.