Troubadour Song

The warrior cross’d the ocean’s foam
For the stormy fields of war;
The maid was left in a smiling home
And a sunny land afar.

His voice was heard where javelin showers
Pour’d on the steel-clad line;
Her step was midst the summer flowers,
Her seat beneath the vine.

His shield was cleft, his lance was riven,
And the red blood stain’d his crest;
While she--the gentlest wind of heaven
Might scarcely fan her breast!

Yet a thousand arrows pass’d him by,
And again he cross’d the seas;
But she had died as roses die
That perish with a breeze--

As roses die, when the blast is come
For all things bright and fair:
There was death within the smiling home--
How had death found her there?