The Hero without a Name. I LOVED, when a child, to seek the page When men for Virtue and Honor fought In serried ranks, 'neath their banners bright, By the fairy hands of beauty wrought, And broidered with "God and Right." 'Twas there I read of Sir Launcelot true, Whose deeds have been sung in a nobler strain; And of Roderic, the Bold, who his falchion drew, In the cause of his native Spain; And, in thought, I beheld gay Sidney ride His white plume dotting the field's expanse; And Bayard, who came like the swirl of the tide,. As he struck for the lilies of France. On the crags of Scotland then I saw, And the swarthy Douglas, whose name was law There was Winkelried, in the Swiss-land famed; 'Neath Erin's flag, with its glad sunburst, There was Light-Horse Harry, the first in the fray, These splendid forms were part of the throng But little I hoped myself to see A spirit akin to these stately men ; Or dreamed that great hearts, like theirs, could be In a prison's crowded pen. Yet, I've seen in the wards of the hospital there, A hero, I fancy, as peerless of soul; A pale-faced boy, whose home is fair, Where the waters of Cumberland roll. On his narrow cot, in that narrow room, Where the music he hears is the sigh and the groan, He lies through the day's long pain and gloom, They hewed him down with their blades of steel, Where the troopers charged from the camp of the foe; But he was not killed-although I feel, It would have been better so; As I sit and hold his wasted hand, There are hours, again, in his fever's heat, Of the sweet wild roses that scatter the light, Of the rivulet's plash, and the song of birds, And I seem to see her, as autumn leaves Like shadows fall in the lonely glen, And the swallows come home to those silent eaves, Where he shall not come again. And then I rejoice that she can not see, How the blight has stained her fairest bloom; I am glad her footstep will never be Beside his northern tomb. And I think of another, who watches too, When the early stars are bright on the hill, Nor dreams that his heart-so confiding and true Will soon be forever still. Ah! many, in vain, to their hopes shall cling, Through the dreary morn and the mournful eve; And memory alone shall its solace bring, To a thousand hearts that grieve. My comrade will last but a little while; A fainter flush-but a sweeter smile- And he knows that until he is under the sod, And somehow I think, when our lives are done, And I know I would rather wear to-day, The crown that is his, with its fadeless bloom, Than Roderic's helm, so golden and gay, Or Sidney's snow-white plume! O prisoner boy! that I were as near, As you are now to that "shining shore," Where the waters of life and of love are clear, And weeping shall come no more. It can not be now; yet, in God's own time, When He calls his weary ones home to rest, May I join with you in the angel chime Like you, be a welcome guest! |