The Foreign Legionary, 1911

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Title:     The Foreign Legionary, 1911
Author: Herbert Edward Palmer [More Titles by Palmer]

He had just come out of prison, and he stood and scowled apart,
The old lust 'neath his ragged coat, and the cold hate in his heart;
And he peered to right and left through the cruel sleet and rain,
Then dived into the nearest street to rob and steal again.

He lay wounded in the desert where the thirsty sand gleamed red,
Arab spearmen thrusting at the dying and the dead;
He had left the shrunken ranks to save a comrade in the rear;
And he raised himself and cursed them; and went down beneath a spear.

He lies and stares at Heaven through a cloud of crows and kites;
While round him prowl the jackals in the lurid tropic nights.
And he'll slowly bleach to powder 'neath the sunlight's livid scroll,
--The man they chased from Europe whom the world denied a soul.

[The end]
Herbert Edward Palmer's poem: Foreign Legionary, 1911

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