Fame is but a fleeting shadow,
Glory but an empty name;
Spite of all that I have gone through,
’Tis, I find, a losing game:
Without interest, without money,
Nothing can a soldier gain;
Though he be the sole survivor
Of a host of comrades slain:
What avail these glitt’ring honours,
Which a queen laid on my breast;
Though I’ve sought them from my childhood,
Would I’d fallen with the rest:
Then my heart had not been broken
Life had fled without a sigh;
Hunger presses—I am fainting—
Ought a soldier thus to die?
The Old Shekarry.

CAMP-FIRE YARNS OF
THE LOST LEGION