Thomas Kibble Hervey

A Hebrew knelt in the dying light, His eye was dim and cold, The hairs on his brow were silver-white, And his blood was thin and old.

Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles, But never came to shore.

A love that took an early root, And had an early doom.

He stood beside a cottage lone And listened to a lute, One summer’s eve, when the breeze was gone, And the nightingale was mute.

The tomb of him who would have made The world too glad and free.

Gayly we glide in the gaze of the world With streamers afloat and with canvas unfurled, All gladness and glory to wandering eyes, Yet chartered by sorrow and freighted with sighs.

Wake, soldier, wake, thy war-horse waits To bear thee to the battle back; Thou slumberest at a foeman’s gates,— Thy dog would break thy bivouac; Thy plume is trailing in the dust And thy red falchion gathering rust.