Such his vague musings--but a plaintive sound Breaks on the deep and solemn stillness round; A low, halt-stifled moan, that seems to rise From life and death’s contending agonies. He turns: Who shares with him that lonely shade? --A youthful warrior on his deathbed laid. All rent and stain’d his broider’d Moorish vest, The corslet shatter’d on his bleeding breast; In his cold hand the broken falchion strain’d, With life’s last force convulsively retain’d; His plumage soil’d with dust, with crimson dyed, And the red lance in fragments by his side: He lies forsaken--pillow’d on his shield, His helmet raised, his lineaments reveal’d. Pale is that quivering lip, and vanish’d now The light once throned on that commanding brow; And o’er that fading eye, still upward cast, The shades of death are gathering dark and fast. Yet, as yon rising moon her light serene Sheds the pale olive’s waving boughs between, Too well can Hamet’s conscious heart retrace, Though changed thus fearfully, that pallid face, Whose every feature to his soul conveys Some bitter thought of long-departed days. “Oh! is it thus,” he cries, “we meet at last? Friend of my soul in years for ever past! Hath fate but led me hither to behold The last dread struggle, ere that heart is cold,-- Receive thy latest agonising breath, And with vain pity soothe the pangs of death? Yet let me bear thee hence--while life remains, E’en though thus feebly circling through thy veins, Some healing balm thy sense may still revive; Hope is not lost--and Osmyn yet may live! And blest were he whose timely care should save A heart so noble, e’en from glory’s grave.” Roused by those accents, from his lowly bed The dying warrior faintly lifts his head; O’er Hamet’s mien, with vague uncertain gaze, His doubtful glance awhile bewilder’d strays; Till by degrees a smile of proud disdain Lights up those features late convulsed with pain; A quivering radiance flashes from his eye, That seems too pure, too full of soul, to die; And the mind’s grandeur, in its parting hour, Looks from that brow with more than wonted power. “Away!” he cries, in accents of command, And proudly waves his cold and trembling hand. “Apostate, hence! my soul shall soon be free-- E’en now it soars, disdaining aid from thee. ’Tis not for thee to close the fading eyes Of him who faithful to his country dies; Not for _thy_ hand to raise the drooping head Of him who sinks to rest on glory’s bed. Soon shall these pangs be closed, this conflict o’er, And worlds be mine where thou canst never soar: Be thine existence with a blighted name, Mine the bright death which seals a warrior’s fame!”