A soldier ceasing with to-day to be; Three years had served, for three had bought release: From war returning to the arts of peace, To Tulle he went, as his department’s town, To-morrow morn to pay his money down. In Italy, his second year begun, This youth had served, when Italy was won. He told of Montebello, and the fight, That ended fiercely with the close of night. There was he wounded, fell, and thought to die, Two Austrian cones had passed into his thigh; One traversed it, the other, left behind, In hospital the doctor had to find: At eight of night he fell, and sadly lay Till three of morning of the following day, When peasants came and put him on a wain, And drove him to Voghera in his pain; To Alessandria thence the railway bore, In Alessandria then two months and more He lay in hospital; to lop the limb The Italian doctor who attended him Was much disposed, but high above the knee; For life an utter cripple he would be. Then came the typhoid fever, and the lack Of food. And sick and hungering, on his back, With French, Italians, Austrians as he lay, Arrived the tidings of Magenta’s day, And Milan entered in the burning June, And Solferino’s issue following soon. Alas, the glorious wars! and shortly he To Genoa for the advantage of the sea, And to Savona, suffering still, was sent And joined his now returning regiment. Good were the Austrian soldiers, but the feel They did not well encounter of cold steel, Nor in the bayonet fence of man with man Maintained their ground, but yielded, turned and ran _Les armes blanches_ and the rifled gun Had fought the battles, and the victories won. The glorious wars! but he, the doubtful chance Of soldiers’ glory quitting and advance,— His wounded limb less injured than he feared,— Was dealing now in timber, it appeared; Oak-timber finding for some mines of lead, Worked by an English company, he said. This youth perhaps was twenty-three years old; Simply and well his history he told. They wished to hear about myself as well; I told them, but it was not much to tell; At the Mont Dore, of which the guide-book talks, I’d taken, not the waters, but the walks. Friends I had met, who on their southward way Had gone before, I followed them to-day. They wondered greatly at this wondrous thing,— _Les Anglais_ are for ever on the wing,— The _conducteur_ said everybody knew We were descended of the Wandering Jew. And on with the declining sun we rolled, And woods and vales and fuller streams behold. About the hour when peasant people sup, We dropped the peasant, took a _curé_ up, In hat and bands and _soutane_ all to fit. He next the _conducteur_ was put to sit; I in the corner gained the senior place. Brown was his hair, but closely shaved his face; To lift his eyelids did he think it sin? I saw a pair of soft brown eyes within.