THEY rode from the camp at morn | |
| With clash of sword and spur. | |
| The birds were loud in the thorn, | |
| The sky was an azure blur. | |
| A gallant show they made | 5 |
| That warm noontide of the year, | |
| Led on by a dashing blade, | |
| By the poet-cavalier. | |
| |
| They laughed through the leafy lanes, | |
| The long lanes of Dartmoor; | 10 |
| And they sang their soldier strains, | |
| Pledged “death” to the Roundhead boor; | |
| Then they came at the middle day | |
| To a hamlet quaint and brown | |
| Where the hated troopers lay, | 15 |
| And they cheered for the King and crown. | |
| |
| They fought in the fervid heat, | |
| Fought fearlessly and well, | |
| But low at the foeman’s feet | |
| Their valorous leader fell. | 20 |
| Full on his fair young face | |
| The blinding sun beat down; | |
| In the morn of his manly grace | |
| He died for the King and crown. | |
| |
| Oh the pitiless blow, | 25 |
| The vengeance-thrust of strife, | |
| That blotted the golden glow | |
| From the sky of his glad, brave life! | |
| The glorious promise gone;— | |
| Night with its grim black frown! | 30 |
| Never again the dawn, | |
| And all for the King and crown. | |
| |
| Hidden his sad fate now | |
| In the sealed book of the years; | |
| Few are the heads that bow, | 35 |
| Or the eyes that brim with tears, | |
| Reading ’twixt blots and stains | |
| From a musty tome that saith | |
| How he rode through the Dartmoor lanes | |
| To his woful, dauntless death. | 40 |
| |
| But I, in the summer’s prime, | |
| From that lovely leafy land | |
| Look back to the olden time | |
| And the leal and loyal band. | |
| I see them dash along,— | 45 |
| I hear them charge and cheer, | |
| And my heart goes out in a song | |
| To the poet-cavalier. | |
| |
