While hope beams brightly from the rider’s eye,
When lo! a crimson flash, with peal sublime,
Instant as thought, and terrible as death,
Around her bursts. Blinded, she starts, then seeing,
Looks again. The horse and his bold rider lie
Hushed in the marble-sleep that lasts through time.
And while the wind howls mournfully around,
The forest owns the baptism of fire.
The onset o’er, in mingled fire and hail,
Behold the rain in sweet profusion falls.