THE DESERTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9726, 23 January 1895, Page 3

THE DESERTER.

You know the story of the pass ? Twenty men held it, till the grass Kan down with blood, and one By on« they dropped down in the place, And the night covered each still face, Where was none living—none. A score of heroes! and one more, Who was no hero, but before The tight forsook hi* post, Struck with unutterable dread, And from that pass of death he fled, And from the conquering host.

I All night they lay there, sleeping on In the dark ravine: but when lone The dawn broke in the sky O'er their great quietness, who kept So strange a guard, a shadow crept Out of the wood hard by. As moving in a dream he drew Nearer and nearer yet, till through The silent camp he passed. Each man had many wounds. He gazed On eves unseeing now and glazed, And knew them to the last. 'I hen once more sought the wood, and hewed From a tree fallen there, a rude High wooden cross with his Blight sword, and through the blood-stained moss Drove it, and cut upon the cross: -';■-"'" " God's soldiers." Only this. And then another cross he wrought, Shaped yet more roughly, that he brought : Some distance from the slain And thrust into the soil, and cut There: " God's deserter." Then tie put A bullet through his brain. Mat Kendall.