With fruitless labour, Clara bound,
And strove to staunch the gushing wound:
The monk with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church’s prayers.
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady’s voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear;
For that she ever sung,
“In the lost battle, borne down by the flying
Where mingles war’s rattle with groans of the dying!”
So the notes rung;—
“Avoid thee, Fiend!—with cruel hand,
Shake not the dying sinner’s sand!
Oh, look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer’s grace divine!
Oh, think on faith and bliss!
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner’s parting seen,
But never aught like this.”
The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale
And—“Stanley!” was the cry;
A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted “Victory!
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!”
Were the last words of Marmion.
