Page:A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields.djvu/150

Proud as Viala; step firm, and forehead high,
He looked a trifle pale, as on the wall
He like the others leaned, and cried aloud—
'Lo, here I am.'
Death brass-browed blushed with shame,
And the stern chief of pardon gave the sign.

I know not, child, amidst the present storm,
This hurricane around us that confounds
The heroes and the bandits good and ill,
What urged thee to the combat, but I say,
And boldly say, that thy soul ignorant
Is a soul tender, lofty, and sublime.
As kind as brave, thou in the gulf's dark depths
Two steps couldst forward take instinctively—
One to thy mother, one as calm to death.
Childhood has candour, manhood has remorse;
And thou art not responsible for what
Thou wert induced to execute or try:
But true and brave the child is that prefers
To light, to life, to the bright dawn, to spring,
To sports permitted, and to all his hopes,
The sombre wall by which his friends have died.
Glory has kissed thy brow—and thou so young!
Boy-friend, Stesichorus in antique Greece
Would willingly have charged thee to defend
A port of Argos. Cynégirus would have said,
'We two are equals that each other love.'
Thou wouldst have been admitted to the rank
Of the pure-minded Grecian volunteers,
By Tyrtæus at Messina, and at Thebes
By Æschylus. On medals would thy name
Have been engraved—medals of brass or gold
To last for ages; and thou wouldst have been