A Good-By

The Wakening bugles cut the night: “To horse! To horse! Away!” And thine the lips that bid me go, The eyes that bid me stay. God make me blind for this one hour! God make me only hear That hurrying drum,—that cry, “They come!” And thy “Good-by!” so near. O eyes that hold me with your tears! Think not your prayers I spurn: Eyes that must for a soldier dim, Not from a craven turn. O lips that bid me forth to fight, I take your challenge—so! Where red death waits without the gates, Thy knight, and God’s,—I go!

Collection: 
English
Ednah Proctor (Clarke) Hayes

More from Poet

  • The Dancer

    Skin creamy as the furled magnolia bud That stabs the dusky shadows of her hair; Great startled eyes, and sudden-pulsing blood Staining her cheek and throat and shoulder bare. (Ah Manuelita! Lita Pepita! List the cachucha! Dance! dance!) Swaying she stands,...

  • The Mocking-Bird

    List to that bird! His song—what poet pens it? Brigand of birds, he ’s stolen every note! Prince though of thieves—hark! how the rascal spends it! Pours the whole forest from one tiny throat!

  • The Deathless

    What charlatans in this later day Beat at the gates of Art! Each with his trick of speech or brush,— Forgetting, that apart From all the brawling of an age, Its feverish fantasy, She waits, who only unto Time The soul of Art sets free! God’s handmaid Beauty,—whose touch rounds A...

  • A Good-By

    The Wakening bugles cut the night: “To horse! To horse! Away!” And thine the lips that bid me go, The eyes that bid me stay. God make me blind for this one hour! God make me only hear That hurrying drum,—that cry, “They come!” And thy “Good-by!” so near. O eyes that hold me with your...

  • To a Wild Rose Found in October

    Thou foolish blossom, all untimely blown! Poor jest of summer, come when woods are chill! Thy sister buds, in June’s warm redness grown, That lit with laughter all the upland hill, Have traceless passed; save on each thornëd stem Red drops tell how their hearts, in dying, bled. Theirs was...