The man beside him had gone back Lamed by the far-shot from the bow And where two fighters held the field One single shadow stood there now No king in sight, no surging line No strong support from shield to shield Only the sound of closing feet And one mind left upon the field Odysseus left alone With the dust at his throat and the bronze all around Odysseus left alone While the day pressed in and the line gave ground No feast-song courage, no bright parade Just a hard soul trying not to yield Odysseus left alone At the center of the breaking field He saw the turn before it closed He knew too much to call it fate A man like him can read the drift The narrowing ring, the pressure’s weight Still he did not give the ground Still he set his spear and stayed For some are built to leave in time And some refuse though they are flayed Odysseus left alone With the dust at his throat and the bronze all around Odysseus left alone While the day pressed in and the line gave ground No feast-song courage, no bright parade Just a hard soul trying not to yield Odysseus left alone At the center of the breaking field They came at him from more than one side Like men who smell a failing wall Thinking one more push, one more cry And the last defender has to fall But he turned sharp where others broke Not huge in rage, not blind with pride He fought the way a trapped blade fights With wit and fury bound inside He struck one down and faced the next He bought himself another breath Not to be saved, not yet to win But to make a cost of death And every man who pressed too near Learned that a cornered mind can kill There is a kind of lonely strength That grows when all the rest stand still Odysseus left alone With the dust at his throat and the bronze all around Odysseus left alone While the day pressed in and the line gave ground No feast-song courage, no bright parade Just a hard soul trying not to yield Odysseus left alone At the center of the breaking field Then pain came in where flesh gives way Not with thunder, not with sign A spear found blood, a wound ran warm And daylight blurred along the line Still he would not drop at once Still he answered blow for blow As if the body could be argued with As if the blood would not yet know But even the sharpest will must bend When too many hands and too much steel Have made one body bear the weight No living strength can wholly seal So he gave the cry that warriors give Not to beg, but to be heard And through the roar of failing ground Help came running toward his word Odysseus left alone But not forever in the dust Odysseus left alone Long enough to prove what stands in us When the line breaks wide and the proud ride past And no bright answer is revealed Some men are known by how they stay When they are left alone on the field So tell it not as easy glory Not as a shining hero’s frame Tell it as one hard hour of iron With danger closing on a name For wisdom is no cloak from wounds And cunning does not soften pain Yet something in him would not yield Though all the plain had turned against him Odysseus left alone With the dust at his throat and the bronze all around Odysseus left alone And the whole dark hour leaned on that ground No feast-song courage, no bright parade Just a hard soul trying not to yield Odysseus left alone At the center of the breaking field
