EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
Our good steeds snuff the evening air,
Our pulses with their purpose tingle;
The foeman's fires are twinkling there;
He leaps to hear our sabres jingle;
Each carbine send its whizzing ball:
Now, cling! clang! forward all,
Into the fight!
Dash on beneath the smoking dome:
Through level lightnings gallop nearer! One look to Heaven! No thoughts of home: The guidons that we bear are dearer. CHARGE!
Cling! clang! forward all!
Heaven help those whose horses fall:
Cut left and right!
They flee before our fierce attack!
They fall! they spread in broken surges. Now, comrades, bear our wounded back, And leave the foeman to his dirges. WHEEL!
The bugles sound the swift recall:
Cling! clang! backward all!
Home, and good night!
Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed,
Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid;
"O Heaven!" he cried, "my bleeding country
save!-
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live with her to die!"
He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed;
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;
Low murmuring sounds along the banners fly,
Revenge, or death, the watchword and reply;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm!-
In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few!
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew:-
O, bloodiest picture in the book of Time!
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career;
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked-as Kosciusko fell!
THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS.
SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.
Last night, among his fellow roughs,
He jested, quaffed, and swore;
A drunken private of the Buffs,
Who never looked before.
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown,
He stands in Elgin's place,
Ambassador from Britain's crown,
And type of all her race.
Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered, and alone,
A heart, with English instinct fraught,
He yet can call his own.
Ay, tear his body limb from limb,
Bring cord or axe or flame,
He only knows that not through him
Shall England come to shame,
Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed, Like dreams, to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed,
One sheet of living snow;
The smoke above his father's door
In gray soft eddyings hung;
Must he then watch it rise no more,
Doomed by himself so young?
Yes, honor calls!—with strength like steel
He put the vision by;
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel,
An English lad must die.
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,
To his red grave he went.
Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed,
Vain those all-shattering guns,
Unless proud England keep untamed
The strong heart of her sons;
So let his name through Europe ring,-
A man of mean estate,
Who died, as firm as Sparta's king,
Because his soul was great.
How sweet it was to breathe that cooler air,
And take possession of my father's chair!
Beneath my elbow, on the solid frame,
Appeared the rough initials of my name,
Cut forty years before! The same old clock
Struck the same bell, and gave my heart a shock
I never can forget. A short breeze sprung,
And while a sigh was trembling on my tongue,
Caught the old dangling almanacs behind,
And up they flew like banners in the wind;
Then gently, singly, down, down, down they
went,
And told of twenty years that I had spent
Far from my native land. That instant came
A robin on the threshold; though so tame,
At first he looked distrustful, almost shy,
And cast on me his coal-black steadfast eye,
And seemed to say,-past friendship to renew,-
"Ah ha! old worn-out soldier, is it you?"
While thus I mused, still gazing, gazing still,
On beds of moss that spread the window-sill,
I deemed no moss my eyes had ever seen
Had been so lovely, brilliant, fresh, and green,
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