Ev'n as I thought of you your soul had sped,

Friend of old, happy, far-off boyhood days,

And, as across the sea I turned my gaze,

The soil of France with your brave blood was red!

Blame not the shears that slit the thin yarn thread.

Though life be lost, immortal is the praise!

Would I were with you crowned with victory's bays,

O Happy Warrior 'midst our English dead!

Yea! God of Battles, what a time to die!

Thy Courts are echoing to the tuck of drum,

The wide days flame with comet souls that fly

Triumphant, at a bound, from Earth to Heaven,

The nights ablaze, with their white passage riven,

As, trailing clouds of glory, swift they come.