Could there be doubt Sebastian died
When flint of arrow cut his side,
Or that his body begged release
And half his mind had chosen peace,
As angels hastened to receive
Whom all a martyr did believe
With palm, with crown and hymning praise
And safety of the halo’s blaze?
And yet with each more painful breath
Sebastian gave a no to death.
His mind was clouding but was set,
His martyrdom would not be yet.
She heard his breath, the good Irene,
And sensed the life suppressed but keen;
His mind she brought to former sense
And body healed from its offense;
For one thing he had yet to do
Before his life on earth were through.
As soon as he could stand and walk,
His lungs with breath and voice with talk,
Sebastian went to find the King;
He had a fatal word to bring.
Stood he before the marveling crowd
Of men not good but greatly proud;
They murmured at the man they saw,
In flesh not dead though dead in law.
The King demanded why he came
When odious was the Christian name:
The soldier could but be aware
How he at royal hand would fare.
Sebastian said: “I live by grace
To see once more the dreaded face
That naught but pain and death portends;
This time we come more like to friends.
Before, when I believed, I hid
And did the least that I was bid,
Nor had it been the stuff of saint
To suffer only by constraint.
Happy betrayal, happy force
That thrust me from my middle course:
Now I betray myself at will,
And if you minded are to kill,
It is no prisoner’s death I die:
Gather your sticks and let them fly.”
It was enough, his deeds were done.
The King gave order him to stun
With blunted clubs, barbarian blows,
No more the cutting arrow goes.
Sebastian falls without reproach
Who senses his third life approach.
Andrew Horne is a poet.