A Summer Christmas and a Sonnet upon The S.S. "Ballaarat." By Douglas B. W. Sladen |
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 | A Summer Christmas and a Sonnet upon The S.S. "Ballaarat." |  |
Hard by Helvellyn's mountain-steep,
Where Leathes' mere begins to peep,
Rises a knoll, in later days
Call'd in the dale King Dunmail's Raise.
Here 'neath the mountain's shoulders sheer
The road that runs from Windermere
Is one long hill from Grasmere shore
To Wy'burn town, six miles or more.
In such a pass three hundred men
Might drive ten thousand back again:
Upon this rise did Dunmail post
His faithful, but too scanty, host.
But what avails devotion high,
Or chivalrous fidelity,
When tenfold is the foeman's rank,
And pouring in on front and flank.
'Twas thus that royal Dunmail's might
Was shattered in that fatal fight;
For while ten times ten-thousand men,
The Saxon host, charged up the glen,
Down huge Helvellyn's rugged side
Pour'd the fierce Scot as pours the tide
Of some long-prisoned mountain stream
When broken is th' opposing beam
That damm'd its flood and turn'd its flow
To drive the miller's wheel below;
Or like the Cyclon blasts that sweep
Over the face of India's deep.
The Briton bravely met the charge
With levell'd spear and sturdy targe:
But vain—for, hemm'd on every hand,
Nought could avail the gallant band:
Not all the valour and the might
Of Arthur and each boasted knight
Nam'd of the Table Round;
Not all King Charlemagne's array
Of Paladins that on a day
A grave with Roland found.
Where Leathes' mere begins to peep,
Rises a knoll, in later days
Call'd in the dale King Dunmail's Raise.
Here 'neath the mountain's shoulders sheer
The road that runs from Windermere
Is one long hill from Grasmere shore
To Wy'burn town, six miles or more.
In such a pass three hundred men
Might drive ten thousand back again:
Upon this rise did Dunmail post
His faithful, but too scanty, host.
But what avails devotion high,
Or chivalrous fidelity,
When tenfold is the foeman's rank,
And pouring in on front and flank.
'Twas thus that royal Dunmail's might
Was shattered in that fatal fight;
For while ten times ten-thousand men,
103
Down huge Helvellyn's rugged side
Pour'd the fierce Scot as pours the tide
Of some long-prisoned mountain stream
When broken is th' opposing beam
That damm'd its flood and turn'd its flow
To drive the miller's wheel below;
Or like the Cyclon blasts that sweep
Over the face of India's deep.
The Briton bravely met the charge
With levell'd spear and sturdy targe:
But vain—for, hemm'd on every hand,
Nought could avail the gallant band:
Not all the valour and the might
Of Arthur and each boasted knight
Nam'd of the Table Round;
Not all King Charlemagne's array
Of Paladins that on a day
A grave with Roland found.
| A Summer Christmas and a Sonnet upon The S.S. "Ballaarat." | |