He is dead, the beautiful youth, <br />The heart of honor, the tongue of truth, <br />He, the life and light of us all, <br />Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call, <br />Whom all eyes followed with one consent, <br />The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word, <br />Hushed all murmurs of discontent. <br /> <br />Only last night, as we rode along, <br />Down the dark of the mountain gap, <br />To visit the picket-guard at the ford, <br />Little dreaming of any mishap, <br />He was humming the words of some old song: <br />'Two red roses he had on his cap <br />And another he bore at the point of his sword.' <br /> <br />Sudden and swift a whistling ball <br />Came out of a wood, and the voice was still; <br />Something I heard in the darkness fall, <br />And for a moment my blood grew chill; <br />I spoke in a whisper, as he who speaks <br />In a room where some one is lying dead; <br />But he made no answer to what I said. <br /> <br />We lifted him up to his saddle again, <br />And through the mire and the mist and the rain <br />Carried him back to the silent camp, <br />And laid him as if asleep on his bed; <br />And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp <br />Two white roses upon his cheeks, <br />And one, just over his heart, blood red! <br /> <br />And I saw in a vision how far and fleet <br />That fatal bullet went speeding forth, <br />Till it reached a town in the distant North, <br />Till it reached a house in a sunny street, <br />Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat <br />Without a murmur, without a cry; <br />And a bell was tolled in that far-off town, <br />For one who had passed from cross to crown, <br />And the neighbors wondered that she should die.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/flower-de-luce-killed-at-the-ford/
