I AM CONTENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6378, 13 February 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

I AM CONTENT.

[-HO.- THE 110 UM.AN'IAX._]

As he lay a-dying the soldier spake: ' I am content! Let my mother be told, in the village there, And my bride in the hut be told, That they must pray with folded hands, With folded hands for me.' The soldier is dead—and with folded hands His bride and his mother pray. On the field of battle they dug his grave, And red with his life-blood the earth was died, The earth they laid him in. Tho sun looked down on him there and spake : ' I am content.' And flowers bloomed thickly upon his grave, And were glad they blossomed there. And when the wind in the tree-tops roared, The soldier asked from the deep, dark grave : ' Did the banner flutter then ?' ' Not so, my hero,' the wind replied, ' The fight is done, but the banner is won. Thy comrades of old have borne it hence, Have borne it in triumph hence.' Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave : ' I am content.' And again he heard the shepherds pass, And the flocks go wandering by, And the soldier asked : ' Is the sound I hear The sound of the battle's roar?' And they all replied : ' My hero, nay ! Thou art dead, and the fight is o'er* Our country joyful and free.' Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave : ' I am content.' Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass, And the soldier asks once more : ' Are these not the voices of them that love. That love—and remember me ?' ' Not so, my hero,' the lovers say, ' We are those that remember not : For the spring has come and the earth has smiled, And the dead must be forgot.' Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave: ' I am content.' —Frederick Harrison, in the Fortnightly Review.