XXIV.
But on the streamlet’s margin green
Other than shepherd forms are seen;
And sounds, unlike the rustic song,
The troubled current rolls along;
When, of the cooling wave to taste,
From either host the warriors haste
With busy tread and hum:
You would have thought that streamlet bound
Were listed field or sacred ground
Where battle might not come.
So late in adverse contest tried,
So deep in recent carnage dyed,
To mutual honour they confide
Their mutual fates; nor shrink
To throw the cap and helm aside,
As, mingled o’er the narrow tide,
They bend their heads to drink;
Or, nature’s feverish wants supplied,
Unarm’d, unguarded, side by side,
Safe in a soldier’s faith and pride
They rest them on the brink.
They speak not—in each others phrase
Unskill’d—but yet the thoughts of praise,
And honour to unfold,
The heart has utterance of its own;
And ere the signal trump was blown,
And ere the drum had roll’d,
The honest grasp of manly hands,
That common link of distant lands,
That sign which nature understands,
The generous feeling told:
The high and sacred pledge it gave,
That both were true, and both were brave,
And something added of regret,
At parting when so lately met,
And (not developed quite)
Some dubious hopes of meeting yet
As heaven their devious paths might set,
In friendship or in fight.