The Muffled Drum

The muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull, deep rolling sound,
Which told the hamlets round
Of a soldier’s burial-rite.

But it told them not how dear,
In a home beyond the main,
Was the warrior-youth laid low that hour
By a mountain-stream of Spain.

The oaks of England waved
O’er the slumbers of his race,
But a pine of the Ronceval made moan
Above his last, lone place;

When the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull, deep rolling sound,
Which call’d strange echoes round
To the soldier’s burial-rite.

Brief was the sorrowing there,
By the stream from battle red,
And tossing on its wave the plumes
Of many a stately head:

But a mother--soon to die,
And a sister--long to weep,
Even then were breathing prayers for him
In that home beyond the deep;

While the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull, deep rolling sound,
And the dark pines mourn’d round,
O’er the soldier’s burial-rite.