And fell a sprinkling of the snows
As from the uplifted hand of God.
Dead in the fortress lay the knight,
His white hands crossed upon his breast,
Dead, he whose clear prophetic sight
Beheld the Christ Star in the West.
That morning, ’mid the turrets white,
The low flags told the empire’s last,
They hung the lilies o’er the knight,
And by the lilies set the cross.