Classic Poem

I ROSE up when the battle was dead,
—I, the most wounded man of us all!
From the slain that fell, to the living that fled,
—Over the waste one name I call.

Thou whose strength was an oak that branched,
—Thou whose voice was a fire that burned,
Thine the face that the fighting blanched,
—Thine the heart that the tumult turned!

Had I, beloved, when swords swept measure,
—Had I but reached thee, and slain thee then:
Then in thy death had my soul found pleasure,
—Counting thee dead as a man with men.

Then with the peace, when the fight was ended,
—Men would have asked, and I would have said
“Yonder he lies whom once I befriended,
—Sharing his rest in the ranks of the dead.”

Ghosts of the riders, ghosts of the ridden,
—Here keep tryst for the loves that died;
Thou alone of all loves art hidden,
—Never again to be near my side.

Here, beloved, when the fight has slackened,
—I rise up, and a sword is mine!
Over the mounds with dead men blackened,
—Ever my soul makes haste for thine.

Though thou lurk in the caverns beneath,
—Though thou crouch by the moaning sea,
I am a sword that leaps to its sheath,
—Never at rest till I find out thee!

Oh, poor soul, all the night unstanched,
—Poor heart, couched in a shameful breast,
Thou, whose face at the fighting blanched,
—Out of the battle I bring thee—rest.