Disclaimer: C. S. Lewis owns Aslan, Roonwit, Tirian, Cair Paravel, the Calormenes, and the circumstances of this poem.
"A noble death any can buy" is a paraphrase of Farsight the Eagle quoting Roonwit the Centaur in The Last Battle, originally reading "A noble death is a treasure no one is too poor buy."
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How can I know where my duty should lie?
How can I know what to do?
With my hand on my spear-shaft I pace as I sigh,
Telling myself: 'they trusted you.'
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The regiment gathers, so soon I must choose;
Where can we serve our king best?
So much depending, to win or to lose,
To rise or to fall with the rest.
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Already the kingdom is struggling to live,
Cair Paravel hard-pressed to stand;
The question: where cavalry most help could give,
With Tirian, or here to the land?
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The seconds are gone and I choose as I must:
My heart will not let me to stay.
Oh strengthen me, Aslan, to not fail your trust,
Not here nor the end of my way.
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A true centaur's gallop, across hill and dale;
My knights are as anxious as I.
With lies the Calormenes have come; they must fail,
Before us true Narnians to die!
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But my choice was ill and an ambush was set:
A captain's most persistent fear.
We fight, aye! we fight hand-to-hand these we've met
With victory yet seeming near.
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But arrows our downfall, and that is my wrong:
Light armor the weakness I chose.
'Our hauberks a burden; speed would be our song!'
And so we now fall to our foes.
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So here is the end, by a shaft in my heart:
Aye, truly a knight's way to die!
I, Roonwit the Centaur to Aslan depart;
A noble death any can buy.
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A/N: Thanks for reading! A couple of notes:
First, metrical: my first poem in a long time to be trisyllabic instead of disyllabic. If I can remember my "feet" right, I typically write iambic, and this is dactylic. Please tell me which you like better, and if I got my terminology wrong!
Second, story-related: Lewis does not give us many details about the sequence of events surrounding Roonwit's activities, only their outcome. For the purpose of this poem, I used this:
1. Tirian sends Roonwit to gather the army ("cavalry").
2. Roonwit arrives at the Cair, and musters his regiment.
3. The Calormene ships sail into the port and begin assaulting the castle.
At this point Roonwit must decide whether to stay with his cavalry and defend the Cair or take it to try to protect Tirian. He decides on the latter.
4. Cavalry leaves Cair Paravel. The Calormenes had already guessed Narnian reinforcements would be sent to Stable Hill and had set a trap for them.
5. The Cavalry fights the Calormenes but are defeated. Roonwit is shot in the side by an arrow.
Third, armorial: I do not know medieval armor, but I figured that for a Narnian centaur to be killed by an arrow in the side, he must not have been wearing anything sturdier than leather ("light armor"). As to why that would be, I guessed that Roonwit traded his regiment's safety for its speed and lost the gamble.
I hope you enjoyed! I'm hoping what I post next will be my first prose one-shot, but I like writing poetry so much that there are no guarantees. Blessings!