Poems Lyrical and Dramatic :: :: University of Virginia Library

I ride on a steed of Arab breed
With hurricane speed afar;
Like the lightning's glance my silver lance,
My sword like a falling star;
A sun on my targe at the morning's marge,
In my beaver a sprig of elm;
And shouts reply when the heralds cry
The knight of the golden helm.

I wear no glove for a lady's love,
No scarf of Persian loom;
But they know my blade with its silver shade,
And my armour's golden gloom,
And the sapphire gem in my diadem,
Where the rays like moonlight bask,
And the galleries sigh, as I canter by,
'Tis the knight of the golden casque.

175

I stand at the list like a hawk on the fist
Or a golden bird of prey,
Then sudden stoop with a radiant swoop,
And bear the foe away;
In the swift careers of the shattered spears
I charge and overwhelm,
And the lords of the field to the barriers yield
For the knight of the golden helm.

I traverse the world like a storm unfurled.
And strike the tyrant down;
From land to land with gauntleted hand
I shatter the cross and crown;
From place to place none see my face
Made bare of the brazen mask;
None know my name but they quake at the fame
Of the knight of the golden casque.

None know my voice, nor the love of my choice,
Nor the land from whence I come,
But I carry the weight of God and Fate
Implacable and dumb;
In silent might like a famine's blight
I sweep through every realm,
Like a pestilence of Omnipotence,
I, the knight of the golden helm.

176

Perched on my head sit blood and dread,
And my sword knows not the sheath,
But I sit and smile in my helm the while
With an angel face beneath;
I keep my course with a ruthless force,
And I do my stated task;
But love has a throne in the heart unknown
Of the knight of the golden casque.