But Sidney was the hero of Zutphen—Sidney "of the delicate form and golden hair." One might almost fancy him the matchless Bayard come again, or the very incarnate spirit of battle, so splendidly did his genius and courage rise in the storm of carnage. None might hope to equal him or match his many deeds that day. Once, seeing Willoughby surrounded and far over among the enemy, Sidney, with a few followers, fought through to him and accomplished his rescue. Twice he charged the Spanish, pressing them back and hacking them down in his path.
At the crisis of the second charge, his horse was shot under him; but he quickly mounted another. Then in one last glorious dash, he cut his way straight through the Spanish masses, and he did not stop while there was a foe to be beaten out of his path. But when he had blazed his solitary way entirely through the ranks of the enemy, and was faced with empty trenches beyond, he turned his horse to press back again. As he wheeled back, a musket-ball struck him in the thigh and gave him a mortal wound. The horse he was riding was not trained to battle, and, taking fright at the din about him, became utterly unmanageable to Sidney's weakening grasp. The terror-stricken animal struggled out of the press and dashed, with his almost fainting rider, back to Leicester's distant camp.
As some of the soldiers rushed to him to help him down, Sidney was seized with the terrible thirst of the wounded, and begged for a drink of water. He was about to press the flagon to his parched lips when he saw the eyes of a wounded foot-soldier turned agonizingly toward it. Without tasting it, he at once handed it to the dying man, with the words,—
"Thy necessity is greater than mine."
But Sidney's necessity was great—so great that the skill of man could not avail to save him; and after a long, agonizing illness, he expired at Arnhem in the arms of his heart-broken wife.
So lived and died Sir Philip Sidney, the last and most perfect flower of knighthood,—failing in his efforts to revive the old passing chivalry, but, all unconsciously, achieving more than his cherished ideal in teaching men how to live and die nobly in the changed order of things.
SIDNEY IN TOURNAMENT
Call back the gorgeous past!
The lists are set, the trumpets sound,
Bright eyes, sweet judges, throned around;
And stately on the glittering ground
The old chivalric life!
"Forward!" The signal word is given;
Beneath the shock the greensward shakes;
The lusty cheer, the gleaming spear,
The snow-plume's falling flakes,
The fiery joy of strife!
Thus, when, from out a changeful heaven
O'er waves in eddying tumult driven
A stormy smile is cast,
Alike the gladsome anger takes
The sunshine and the blast!
Who is the victor of the day?
Thou of the delicate form, and golden hair,
And manhood glorious in its midst of May;
Thou who upon thy shield of argent bearest
The bold device, "The loftiest is the fairest!"
As bending low thy stainless crest,
"The vestal throned by the west"
Accords the old Provençal crown
Which blends her own with thy renown;
Arcadian Sidney, nursling of the muse,
Flower of fair chivalry, whose bloom was fed
With daintiest Castaly's most silver dews,
Alas! how soon thy amaranth leaves were shed;
Born, what the Ausonian minstrel dream'd to be,
Time's knightly epic pass'd from earth with thee!
Edward Bulwer Lytton