At Marcab's lingering siege, where day by day
We told the Moslem legions toiling slow,
Planting their engines, delving in their mines
To quench in our destruction this last light
Of Christendom, our fortress in the crags,
God's beacon swung defiant from the stars;
One thunderous night I knew their miners groped
Below, and thought ere morn to die, in crush
And tumult of the falling citadel.
And pondering of my fate--the broken storm
Sobbing its life away--I was aware
There grew between me and the quieting skies
A face and form I knew,--not as in dreams,
The sad dishevelled loveliness of earth,
But lighter than the thin air where she swayed, -
Gold hair flame-fluttered, eyes and mouth aglow
With lambent light of spiritual joy.
With sweet command she beckoned me away
And led me vaguely dreaming, till I saw
Where the wild flood in sudden fury had burst
A passage through the rocks: and thence I led
My host unharmed, following her luminous eyes,
Until the east was grey, and with a smile
Wooing me heavenward still she passed away
Into the rosy trouble of the dawn.
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