He should have stayed where lamplight burned Where cedar smoke held back the night Where bridal hands had touched his own And everything still leaned toward life Fresh from the bed, fresh from the vow With wedding promise in his chest He crossed the water into war And gave the sword what love had left Iphidamas falls Too young for the dust, too near to the flame Iphidamas falls With a bride in his house and war in his name One night for the garland One dawn for the blade So quickly the world can turn gold into gray He came with courage, not with boast A straight-backed son from a guarded hall He saw the king through bronze and glare And thought one strike could answer all His spear drove hard with both hands set It found the belt, it bit the frame But metal held and fortune slipped And battle has no use for shame Iphidamas falls Too young for the dust, too near to the flame Iphidamas falls With a bride in his house and war in his name One night for the garland One dawn for the blade So quickly the world can turn gold into gray Then Agamemnon closed the space No courtly pause, no second breath He tore the spear free from the bind And sent it back with iron death The plain received the bridegroom first Before his house had learned his tread And all the gifts that should have grown Lay useless near the newly dead What did she hear in distant rooms A cup set down, a door in wind? Did someone speak his name too soft As if the truth could still be thinned? No messenger can carry home What battle takes before noon’s rise A husband only just begun Now shut forever in his eyes Iphidamas falls Too young for the dust, too near to the flame Iphidamas falls With a bride in his house and war in his name One night for the garland One dawn for the blade So quickly the world can turn gold into gray A brother saw and grief turned sharp He bent through shouting, blood, and dread He caught the body from the trampled field And called the living by the dead And somewhere through the crash of shields A different wound began to wake For sorrow rarely travels alone It always leaves another break Iphidamas falls Remember the cost, remember the name Iphidamas falls Not all of the doomed are seeking fame Some walk out of love And are taken by war And the song reaches home When the man never will
