. . oh no! everywhere
In the camp which she moved through, she came face to face
With some noble token, some generous trace
Of his active humanity . . .
"Well," he replied,
"If it be so?"
"I come from the solemn bedside
Of a man that is dying," she said. "While we speak,
A life is in jeopardy."
"Quick then! you seek
Aid or medicine, or what?"
"'Tis not needed," she said.
"Medicine? yes, for the mind! 'Tis a heart that needs aid!
You, Eugene de Luvois, you (and you only) can
Save the life of this man. Will you save it?"
"What man?
How? . . . where? . . . can you ask?"
She went rapidly on
To her object in brief vivid words . . . The young son
Of Matilda and Alfred--the boy lying there
Half a mile from that tent door--the father's despair,
The mother's deep anguish--the pride of the boy
In the father--the father's one hope and one joy
In the son:---the son now--wounded, dying! She told
Of the father's stern struggle with life: the boy's bold,
Pure, and beautiful nature: the fair life before him
If that life were but spared . . . yet a word might restore him!
The boy's broken love for the niece of Eugene!
Its pathos: the girl's love for him; how, half slain
In his tent, she had found him: won from him the tale;
Sought to nurse back his life; found her efforts still fail
Beaten back by a love that was stronger than life;
Of how bravely till then he had stood in that strife
Wherein England and France in their best blood, at last,
Had bathed from remembrance the wounds of the past.
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