Contributions to a Ballad History of England and the States Sprung from Her ::

Contributions to a Ballad History of England and the States Sprung from Her

By W. C. Bennett

Bennett, W. C. (1820-1895)

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THE FALL OF HARALD HARDRADA.

THE HUNT OF THE SAXON SWINE.

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

“DEUS LO VULT!”—GOD WILLS IT!”

THE WATCH OF THE CRUSADES.

QUEEN ELEANOR'S VENGEANCE.

IN WARWICK CASTLE.

BEFORE BOSWORTH FIELD.

THE MARTYRDOM OF RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

RUPERT IS OUT!

THE MARCH TO BRENTFORD OF THE LONDON TRAINED-BANDS.

THE DEEDS OF WELLINGTON.

THE DEATH-MARCH OF WELLINGTON.

COSSACK WE WILL NEVER BE.

HARK! THE WOLVES ARE ON THE TRACK.

GOD BLESS THE DEAR OLD LAND.

THE RAISING OF THE FLAG AT FORT SUMTER,

THE LUCK OF EDEN HALL.

OUR GLORY ROLL.

O MY LAND, MOTHERLAND.

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THE FALL OF HARALD HARDRADA.

1066.

Hear the fame of Harald the strife-lover!
Hear the fall of Harald of the fair hair!

In his hall the son of Sigurd feasted;
On the benches lay and drank his war-men.

On the hall-hearth redly blazed the pine logs;
Fast the horns went round, with ale white-foaming.

Then sang Snorr, the Scald, the Rune-compeller,
The fierce Norse hearts joying with his sagas.

Through his chant was heard the clash of war-ships,
Clang of shields and helms, and shricks of slaughter.

For he told the war-deeds of Hardrada,
Told the deeds of Harald the helm-cleaver.

“Fiercely forth to ocean sweep his war-ships,
“Sweep his dragons forth, his fierce sea-roamers.

“Halland sees, aghast, his gleaming war-shields;
“Valland glares with red fires of his kindling.

“Well Northumbria knows his axe-men's war-play;
“White-lipped Mercia shrieks before his war-cry.

“Erin's widows wail his stormful coming;
“Bretland's maids remember well the Viking.

“Hungered are ye, kites, ye yellow-footed?
“Follow far his steeds, his ocean-riders!

“Norrasund's blue straits his swift keels furrow;
“Serkland's spoils sink deep his sea-kissed gunwales.

“Jorsalaland greets the mailèd Norsemen;
“Loud the Greekland's city greets the Varing.

“Home return his gilt-beaked barks, deep-laden,
“Laden deep with treasures, battle-gather'd.

“Jarl and Bonder hail the King returning,
“Joyful throne the sainted Olaf's brother.

“Let the Danes' land well its green coasts buckler,
“Shield its shore-towns well from Harald's Norsemen!

“White in ashes lie green Jutland's homesteads;
“Swend, the Danes' king, shields not smoking Fyen.

“Hela's ravening maw, so well who gorges,
“Joys so well the Dread ones, the Slain-choosers?

“Grim the gory sword-strife at Nisaa;
“Sixty war-ships Swend lost in the sword-game.

“Why no more flaps death the dread Landeya,
“Harald's flag, the dreaded far Land-waster?

“Why no more heaps he the feast of ravens,
“Sigurdson, the stern, the gaunt wolf-gorger?”

Then up through the hall, stern strode Earl Tosti;
Fierce he strode, the wrathful son of Godwin.

And he spoke, “O King, the White Isle greets you;
“Knut's throne longs to hold the son of Sigurd.

“Curses on the crafty son of Godwin,
“He upon the throne of Edward seated!

“Curses deep on him, born of my mother!
“Who withstood me, Tosti, in my Earl-rights!

“Not for long shall he escape my vengeance;
“Many they who soon shall cry my war-cry.

“Burgh, and thorpe, and grange, and tower are ready;
“Thane and thrall shall muster to my coming.

“King, send forth thy message through thy Norsemen!
“London soon shall throne thee in its Minster.

“Grasp the great sway held by Knut the mighty!
“So, with his, thy glory shall be mated.”

Ceased the Earl, and loud round through the court-men,
Hoarsely rolled approval of his counsel.

But the King sat silent in his high-seat,
And on all the Earl spoke, much he pondered.

Then arose the storm of song, fierce-chanted,
Snorr's, the Scald's, song, sweeping all hearts warwards.

“Launch the serpents! launch the gold-maned dragons!
“Let their long keels cleave again the billows!

“Let their dark sails hold again the storm-winds!
“Let their tall masts creak before the tempests!

“Let the sun glow red upon their shield-rows,
“On their steel scales ranked along their bulwarks!

“Swift, with strong-armed stroke, we sweep the ocean;
“Swift our long oars smite the foam-maned billows.

“Grey rise England's surf-swept cliffs to landwards;
“Green her fields, and black her ports rise shorewards.

“Deep our furrows cut the rushy Humber;
“Dark our anchors cleave the Ouse's tideway.

“Why so near to Yule-tide flash the Bael-fires?
“Fast the beacons flame afar our coming.

“Why do thane and thrall snatch down their war-gear?
“Fast from forest, moor, and dale, they muster.

“Fast the thickening tide of war rolls onwards;
“Fast the war-ranks pour towards the foemen.

“Well may Jovick's Earls their war-men gather!
“Sore shall wall and tall tower need their bowmen!

“For he comes whose war-deeds scalds are chanting,
“He, the shield-ring-breaker in the war-fray.

“Through the sleet of hissing arrows stalks he,
“Where the death-sparks leap from helms deep-cloven.

“War-cries, and the shrill-tongued yells of slaughter
“Shriek the conquering war-way of Hardrada.”

So sang Snorr, the Scald, and, to his singing,
Fiercely throbbed the war-men's hearts around him.

And around, the bearded court-men rising,
Clashed their liking of the stormy scald-song.

Then the rage of battle seized Hardrada,
The Berserker thirsting for the onset.

And his faith he plighted to Earl Tosti,
And his word sped forth through shore and upland.

Fast his host have gathered; through the tempest,
Fast his dragons steers he towards the slaughter.

Scarborough is red with blood of foemen;
From the Ouse, the Earls have fled before him.

Fear is on the thanes and men of Jovick,
And their troth they plight it shall be rendered.

But on high in heaven, the great All-father
Wills to welcome to his halls the heroes.

Straightway earthwards stoop the dread slain-choosers,
Sigurd's son to summon unto Odin.

Bright the beams of morning flash from seawards;
Hot on helm and shield and spear they glisten.

But no arrow-sleet, death-dealing, dread they;
Mail nor hauberk deem they that they're needing.

Mailless stride they through the sultry noon-tide,
Blithe with thought of red gold won for ransom.

Hoarse on high, the raven croaks above them,
And the gaunt wolf leaps towards the slaughter.

High above the gilt helms of his court-men,
Towers King Harald, forging runes of glory.

What afar is bright through dust-clouds gleaming?
Who in arms come thus, the town, to render?

Is it peace or is it war gleams towards them?
Ere the night, the crow shall full be feasted.

Harold comes; comes fast the son of Godwin;
To the war-game, rolls the might of England.

Soon on shields and helms shall swords be ringing;
Soon the axe shall reap the iron war-field.

King of men, he comes his land to buckler,
Godwin's son, the strong in war and council.

Not for sloth did thane and burgher choose him,
Throne him king on high in London's Minster.

Not for coward ease did saintly Stigand
Pour upon his head the oil of kingship.

Wise to think for, strong to lead his people,
Comes he, as when Gryffith fell before him.

Range the heroes' benches in Valhalla;
Brim, with foaming ale and mead, the skull-cups.

On his black steed leaps the fierce Hardrada;
Round his charger crowd his Earls to council.

“Counsel give me, Tosti. Ye, my court-men,
“Rede me counsel; counsel good is needed.”

Speaks grim Tosti, “Mailless shall we meet them?
“To our ships, well were it that we hied us.

“There is choice to sail or there to bide them;
“Swift does conquest dog my brother's war-way.”

Speaks Hardrada, “Better is my counsel;
“Summon from our ships, in arms, my bonders.

“On our swiftest horses speed our message;
“Hard shall be the fray before we lose it.

“To the breezes, Frirek, give my banner;
“Ring my ranks beneath my dread Land-waster.

“Round my Raven-Standard, sound my war-horns,
“Blaring through its folds the din of onset.

“Man to man, around it link the shield-ring;
“Plant the spear-rows sharp against the horsemen.”

Rides around his ranks the King of Norway;
Falls his horse; quoth he, “A fall is lucky.”

“Who fell? blue his kirtle; gilt his helmet.”
“Norway's king is he, O son of Godwin.”

“Stately is he; kingly looks the hero;
“But methinks full sure his luck has left him.”

Forth from England's ranks a score of horsemen
Ride, their chargers mailed, and mailed their riders.

Near the Northmen's steel array up-reining,
“Where is Tosti?” shouts their kingly leader.

“I am he,” quick answer makes the fierce Earl.
“To thee sends thy brother Harold greeting.

“Thine shall be again Northumbria's earldom;
“Thou. his man, shalt rule with him his kingdom.”

“Hate and scorn ye proffered me at Yule-tide;
“Changed, methinks, O brother, are thy offers.

“Friendship had ye proffered then, full surely,
“Better had it been this day for England.

“But, if I, forgiving, take thy proffer,
“What giv'st thou to Harald, King of Norway?”

Hollow from the blue helm leaps the answer,
“Gift too will we give unto Hardrada.

“Seven feet of English earth shall his be;
“More, if more be needed by his stature.”

Grimly laugh around the mailèd horsemen,
Fiercely joying in the kingly answer.

But in wrath dark grows the frown of Tosti,
From his lips leap hoarse the words of thunder.

“Then let Harold boune him for the battle;
“Never Northman this shall say of Tosti,

“That, with Sigurd's son, I, warring westward,
“Basely left him, left him for his foemen.

“Fixed am I with him to die with honour,
“Or this land with him to win with glory.”

Back the horsemen ride; back turns Earl Tosti,
Thoughtful, to the son of Sigurd, riding.

“Who was he, to thee who spoke so kingly?”
“Harold was he, Godwin's son, my brother.”

“Hadst thou told me, never to his people
“Back this Harold, England's king, had ridden.”

“Peace, to me, and power and rule, he proffered;
“On me were his blood, had I betrayed him.

“Rather would I die by him than slay him,
“If fate wills by one should fall the other.”

Towards the Northmen, roll the waves of battle;
Flames the war-song from the son of Sigurd.

“Forward! forward! here no hauberks glisten,
“But, from swords in strong hands, light is gleaming.

“Forward! forward! here no mail-coat glances,
“But here beat the fearless hearts of heroes.

“Skill to-day and courage are our armour;
“Eye and hand, instead of steel, shall fend us.”

Round the bristling spear-ring, ride the horsemen;
Back, the Northmen's shield-wall flings their billows.

Fixed, the stone-walled castle mocks the storm-wind;
Rock, the Northmen breast the roar of England.

Round they ride, ride round the dread shield-rampart;
Breach nor break find they within the bulwark.

Horse and horsemen rear against the spear-heads,
From the sharp-set edge of death recoiling.

Fly the English? breaks the serried shield-row,
On the flyers press the raging Northmen.

Back the foemen come; the son of Godwin
Hews their way deep through the ranks of Norway.

And the hail of arrows on their bare breasts
Hurtles, in their mailless flesh finds welcome.

With the wild Berserker madness raging,
Through the press of heroes, hews Hardrada.

Hark, on high the dread Valkyrii call him.
In his bare throat, drinks the shaft his life-blood.

Like the tall mast snapped before the storm-wind,
Falls he, like the pine cleft by the woodman.

Never more the strong shall fall before him,
While behind him pours the flood of battle.

Long his Queen shall watching look to westward,
Look across the long waves, for his coming.

Round him fight and fall the heaped-up corpse-ring.
Scorning Harold's proffered peace and mercy.

Falls fierce Tosti, grimly as the bear falls,
Fell, at bay, amid the shouting huntsmen.

Eystein brings in vain his armèd succours:
Worn and wearied, press they from their war-ships,

Through the sultry noontide vainly toiling,
But to higher pile the battle's slaughter.

Falls at last the beacon of the war-field;
The Land-Waster sinks, the Raven-Standard.

Then again out speaks the son of Godwin,
“But to slaughter warring heroes, war I.

“Plight your troth no more your ocean-riders,
“Viking-filled, shall come with fire and slaughter.

“So bear hence your kingly dead, O Olaf,
“In your long ships, home, O heroes, bear him.

“And with holy rites, in far-off Norway,
“Tomb him, peaceful after all his battles.”

Forth to seawards sweep the Northmen's galleys,
Bearing home the restful son of Sigurd.

So fell Harald, last of all the Vikings,
Scald, by scalds sung, Harald of the fair hair.

THE HUNT OF THE SAXON SWINE.

1068.

Now would you hear a good lay trolled?
Then hearken, you mates of mine,
And I'll sing you what Hurlstone's lords befell,
In their hunt of the Saxon swine.

Up the broad, broad Trent the chase lay loud,
Yet the game was not brought to bay,
When the hounds had nosed green Sherwood's glades
The half of an August day.

And what do the hunters chase this morn?
And what is the game they track?
For each knight is armed with hauberk and helm,
Nor the squires their armour lack.

O! hawking is good by the reedy Trent,
And the heron and duck they scare;
But heron nor duck need fear a hawk
From a mailèd wrist that's there.

Through the still green glades and ferny dells
They rouse the boar and deer;
But a fiercer prey than either at bay
Sir Roger Malvoise seeks here.

For in Hurlstone's tower the Saxon ruled,
And in Hurlstone the Norman reigns,
And the Saxon blood of Hereward's race
Grey Hurlstone's rafters stains.

O! woe is me for great Henghist's race,
And woe for red Hastings' day!
And, woe! thrice woe! that our Saxon land
Should be the Norman's prey!

O woe is me! That our fathers lie
Bemocked in their gory graves!
Their daughters—the toys of Norman lust,
Their sons—the Norman's slaves!

But not the Bastard's thralls are we,
While our free-born hands have swords;
While Sherwood has deer, and the Trent a flood,
We spit at our new-come Lords.

Oh! outlawed men know cold and dole;
But rather, I trow, we'd have
This windy roof of the greenwood free,
Than the hall-fire of the slave.

What though with forest wolves we lair,
And are chased with the hounded deer,
Yet vengeance at times is wine and feast
To our Saxon free hearts here.

What though they hold us as the beast,
Though their Saxon swine we be,
Sometimes men say, boars turn to bay,
And blood on their tusks ye see.

Last night its Norman master drank
In Hereward's ancient hall;
By his side, its Saxon daughter shrank,
His paramour and thrall.

He quaffed the red wine and the venison ate,
Drunk with his scorn and pride,
Nor thought of the Saxon hate of hell
That she joyed in at his side.

And little recked he of the word she sped,
Or ever uprose the sun,
That should give his heir to the Saxon spear
In the day whose hours are run.

Why tarries Sir Lionel, his son?
From the forest dies the day;
The hunt it is done, and gone is the sun,
Why comes he not, I pray?

The forest's glades are dim with gloom;
Sir Lionel should be here,
To tell how the hunted Saxons died
To-day on his Norman spear.

The hall has gloomed from eve to night,
And cresset and torch flare red,
And the Baron sits grim in the ruddy light,
Now cursing, now dumb with dread.

What falls through night in the Castle-court
With a dull sound, heavy and dead?
Full grim and gashed is that ghastly gift,
That slain man's gory head.

With wide dead eyes, that Saxon's gift,
Up Hurlstone's hall is borne,
And Sir Roger is 'ware that no more his heir
Will rouse to the huntsman's horn.

Let him think as his teeth he grinds in wrath,
As sonless he rages there,
Of the race, from that hearth, his sword drove forth,
To house in the wild wolf's lair.

Let him read the hate of her Saxon heart
Who glares by his heirless side,
She who fell the prey of his lordly lust
In the hall where her father died.

Let him sound the depth of her eyes' fierce joy
At his whelpless raging there,
As she gloats on the tears in the ruthless eyes
That mocked at her fierce despair.

Let him vengeance vow, and arm, and out
With the first grey break of day,
But each Saxon boar that Sir Lionel tore,
I trow, it's far away.

That the boar has tusks he'll mind full long;
He'll mind, O brothers mine,
The goodly sport that his son befell
In his hunt of the Saxon swine.

Now far let him trace and track and wind,
And hunt through glade and dell,
The game he seeks, he shall not find,
That trow we men right well.

He shall not glimpse the Saxon swine,
Till, brothers, we list to show
To the father these tusks of yours and mine,
These tusks that the son laid low.

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

1087.

In bed of dole King William lies; three months he there hath lain:
All gross of body, sick he lies, nor seeks to rise again:
The horse champs idle in the camp; sleep the good lance and sword
And France may laugh to scorn his ire, till leeches heal their lord.

“Now, by my faith,” King Phillip laughed, his Frankish lords among,
“Our cousin England's lying in, methinks it lasts full long;
“If ever it be over, at his churching sure there'll be
“Full store of jests and merriment, great thankfulness and glee.”

“By the splendour and the birth of God!” 'twas thus King William swore,
When Phillip's bitter mocking, to his bed, his Normans bore,
“In Notre-Dame de Paris I'll be churched, and, at the sight,
“Ten thousand Norman lances this Phillip's church shall light.”

And he hath leapt from forth his couch, and he hath armed in wrath,
And, through the summer fields of France, a desert tells his path;
The wheat waved fair; the vines rose green; they withered in his frown;
Fruit-tree and vine and grain, beneath his charger's hoofs, go down.

Woe unto Mantes-sur-Seine! how gay and glad the fair town stood;
He comes; its homes are red with flames, are soaked with steaming blood;
And, through the crash of roofs, with heart all pitiless rides he;
Through all its woes, its groans and shrieks, he shouts in savage glee.

“Vengeance is mine,” so saith the Lord; his charger plants its feet
Upon the fiery embers that smoke along the street;
It springs; its heavy rider forgets his cruel mirth,
As, rearing high, his war-horse flings its ruthless lord to earth.

Full lightly recked he evermore of dying sob and groan;
He drains the cup he loved to deal; God makes the draught his own;
He rode in joy through Hastings' field, and now in pain and dole,
Its weight of woe afflicts him sore, its blood is on his soul.

O weeks of leeches and of priests! his weary hours are spent
In thoughts of deeds he would undo, that he can but sore repent;
“Rebuild,” he groans, “God's churches, the good towns burnt by me;
“Deal my treasures out to England's poor, and set my captives free!”

“I may not bid a son of mine, the land I won, to heir;
“Blood-bought, to none, but God alone, to give that land, I dare;
“O Mary, holy Mother of God, my soul take thou!
“Wash thou its soiling sins away, its sins that crush me now!”

He dies; but while St. Mary's bells, at prime, his life ring out,
What love salutes his glazing eyes? who stand his couch about?
Nor son, nor friend, nor Baron leal, weeps for his parting breath,
Nor soothes, with loving looks, his soul to the great calm of death.

Son, courtman, leech, “To horse! to horse!” why should they lingering stay?
Off! off! with arms, with gold, with robes; none spoilless ride away;
Now serf and villain strip the form, so late they shook before;
There lies their mighty lord, all lone, all naked on the floor.

“Who evil doth shall evil rue;” all lonely there he lies;
Not one to straight his stiffening corpse, to close his staring eyes;
Till monks, in Christian pity, come, beside the dead to pray;
And Rouen's Bishop fain, to Caen, would have it borne away.

“For ruth and love of God,” at last the stranger Herlin said,
“Be mine the cost, since none are here to tend and tomb the dead;”
Lo, God is just; to strangers' hands, broad England's lands he gave,
Now, unto him, a stranger's hands give, at the last, a grave.

In Stephen's Minster, in the church he built, there shall he lie;
Beside the altar gapes the grave; stand monk and abbot by;
The mass is done; lower down the corpse; but then from out the crowd,
Stept Asselin Fitz-Arthur, and, I wot, his cry was loud.

“Ye shall not tomb the robber here; he, priests, for whom ye pray,
“This earth in which his grave ye make, he seized by force away;
“My father's house stood here; this land is mine; my glebe I claim;
“Ye shall not tomb the spoiler here; I bar it in God's name.”

“God knows it; priests, he speaketh truth; we know it this man's ground.”
So, one and all, out cry the crowd, the burghers standing round;
Then thirty pence the Bishops tell, and pledge its worth to pay
To him who owns the land, ere, in its grave, the dead they lay.

Uncoffined, wrapt in royal robes, they thrust him down the tomb,
To front God's awful judgment-seat, to hear God's awful doom;
Now would I not be he who goes to doom at God's dread hands
For all his haut renown and rule, for all broad England's lands.

“DEUS LO VULT!”—GOD WILLS IT!”

THE CRY OF THE CRUSADES. 1095.

To market-cross, to hut and hall, the holy Hermit sped,
With sackcloth on his saintly form, with ashes on his head;
Sore travel-worn and swart, he came, all fiery, from the East;
With wild fierce eyes, and wails and prayers, he burst on fray and feast;

From the blood-stained ways of pain and dole, that weary pilgrims go,
He came, with tongue that told their shame, with cry that cried their woe;
“Woe! woe!” the holy Peter cried, “for the sights these eyes have seen,
“Where the holy Saints were martyred, where our dear Lord Christ hath been;
“Within His blessèd birth-place, the cursèd brood are found;
“By His dear tomb, they scoff at Him, they call upon Mahound;
“Through Bethlehem's ways, on Olivet, in Nazareth's sad street,
“Through Zion's woeful gateways tread their proud and faithless feet;
“And they who, over sea and land, the pilgrim's staff have borne,
“They bear the unbelievers' stripes, their blows and taunts and scorn;
“These eyes have seen their thousand woes, have heard their suffering cries;
“These hands have dressed their bleeding wounds, have wiped their weeping eyes;
“This heart hath burned, that Christ's dear flock to the accurst should pay
“To look upon the blessèd spot where He, our dear Lord, lay;
“How long shall Thy fierce foes exult and mock Thee, God! how long
“Upon Thy name shall they heap shame, upon Thy servants, wrong!”

In town and way, by night and day, that cry was ever heard,
And, as men hearkened to that voice, their hearts within them stirred;
From town to tower, from tower to town, through palace, hut and hall,
It rang, and Baron, Knight and Squire armed, answering to its call;
Nor burned in high-born breasts alone that fierce and holy ire;
Burgher and serf and villain vile, all felt that raging fire;
Wives, maids and infants drank it in, devoured with holy rage,
And babes their weakness all forgot, and eld knew not its age;
For God and His dear sepulchre, who counteth wounds or loss?
Weak is the heart that will not don, for Christ, His bleeding cross;
Base is the soul that halts or shrinks, that will not tread His path,
That will not hew the heathen down, and deal to them His wrath;
For him who conquers is haut fame and Christ's all blessèd love;
For him who falls assoil from sin and God's high bliss above;

Whet ye the sword and point the spear; the buckler burnish bright;
Rivet the mail; the charger gird; spur on, God's valiant knight;
Know ye no fear, though thousands threat; through hosts, all fearless, ride;
He arms thy hand; He shields thy head; the Lord is by thy side;
Jerusalem, upon thy walls, His triumphs shall be blown,
His banners waved, His cross be reared, Zion once more His own.

Then shall His holy place be cleansed, washed clean with Paynim blood,
Then shall His turbaned scoffing foes be heaped, the vultures' food;
Meet sacrifice our Lord shall have, an air with incense dim,
The smoke of blood from heathen hounds that sweetly mounts to Him,
Meet orisons unto His ears, the scoffers' shrieks shall rise,
Blended with holy chanted hymns, and thunderous battle-cries;
Sweet to His ears as unto ours, shall mingle groan and yell
From misbelieving crowds we smite down to Mahound in hell;
O sainted Hermit, peace for thee shall be; the Lord on high
Hath vengeance taken for the wrong that woke thy woeful cry;
Lo, Pagan blood, like Jordan's flood, is rolled through Zion's ways;
Lo, while a babe lives to be cleft, the hot sword slays and slays;
O, more than rich reward for all, ye warriors of the Cross,
For hungered march and fiery thirst, for wounds and brethren's loss,
For blazing noons that scared us with the desert's blasting breath,
For plague-strewn camp and deadly scathe on many a field of death,
Lo, prostrate in the blood accurst that round their threshold swims,
Our souls in His blest Temple-gates, breathe out adoring hymns,
Praise unto Him who called us forth to wash away His shame,
To deal His wrath and, to all lands, to glorify His name!

THE WATCH OF THE CRUSADES.

1099.

She sits in the eastern turret
Of that castle rugged and grey,
And ever her watch is eastward kept,
Till the long day dies away.

Till, behind her, dies the sunset,
And darkness the far view fills
That she looks across, from its English walls
To its circling English hills.

Yet they rise unseen before her,
Those hills of her own green Kent,
For ever a far-off landscape here
Is with her, since first he went;

Since, the cross on his knightly shoulder,
And his vassals arrayed, O woe!
Lost, and, how long to be lost to her!
Years since, she saw him go.

And ever the eastmost turret
She climbs to, to look in vain
To the turn in the road that must show him first,
When he comes, if he comes again.

And there, from that eastward turret,
Her looks will roam and roam
Down the one grey road, from the broidery raised
That is worked to greet him home.

Her maids may whisper and chatter,
But, jest and laugh as they may,
She tries in vain to heed their mirth,
All lost to what they say.

But most she loves to clamber
Up, up the steep winding stair,
To that grey still chamber, when no one,
No voice, and no laugh are there.

Then, then, in that grey still turret,
What sounds in her hushed ears ring!
What scenes of sorrow, and ever one form,
To her eyes, her heart's fears bring!

Look! now, to her inward vision,
A cloudless sky is given,
A glaring earth, that fiercely glows
To the glow of a glaring heaven.

Blind to all outward seeing,
In thought, she only sees
The stirless shade of the desert palms
That know not of air or breeze.

And the stretch of the blinding desert
Glares redly across her sight,
Still sands that know no motion,
Bathed in eternal light.

Then forms are seen and horsemen
Upon the hot wastes rise,
The ranks of the worn Crusaders,
They flicker before her eyes.

“Water! O Jesu! water!
“One drop!” she hears that yell,
As if 'twere Dives, shrieking up
To Lazarus, out from hell.

And one gaunt shape she watches,
Wordless, amid the din,
That onward toils through the molten sands,
To the mocking spring to win.

On the hot sand, who lies dying,
Too weak to scare away
The vulture from his charger's eyes,
He soon the foul bird's prey?

Or, fetlock-deep, their chargers
Are toiling and toiling sore,
While ever some sink 'neath the weary load
They never shall bear more.

A moment, the silence rings with shouts.
And the Arabs' yell she hears,
The Christians' shrieks, and the Paynim's cries,
And the splinter and crash of spears.

Again, and the swarthy Moslem
Are gone, and the host toil by;
God! have they left him there alone,
Wounded, unshrived, to die?

O that her love could bear her,
As swift as her wild fear flies,
To pillow on hers his dying head,
And to bless his dying eyes!

But sometimes the eastmost turret
Gives her brain as weary dreams
Of cities and kiosked gardens,
And fountains and golden streams.

For, ever those gardens tending,
A Christian slave is there,
That the bitter scoff of the Pagan hounds,
Must, smitten and shackled, bear;

Till the knightly heart is broken.
And the haughty eye grows dim,
And the stately form is bowed and bent,
Till the meanest can scoff at him.

Or, hark! his haughty spirit
Unbroken, Mahound has curst,
And spat at the dogs who know not Christ,
And hath dared them to their worst.

And, crouched in that ghastly dungeon,
Where newt and adder crawl,
She sees him, tortured, and crushed, and worn
By misery worse than all.

O terrors! in shapes, how ghastly,
You scare and affray her eyes!
And hope, no fairer visions,
No sweeter dreams, supplies?

Yes; ever the first in glory,
In danger, saved through all,
Joy shows him, Christ's dear soldier,
Not doomed to sink or fall.

And ever the deadly mêlée,
And burning wastes are trod,
Secure, by him she loveth,
Her warrior, loved of God.

And ever, as on he battles
To where Christ's triumphs were,
His thoughts, she knows, are of his Lord,
His Lord alone, and her.

Then sometimes, calmly sinking
In such sweet dreams to rest,
With a yet, yet dearer vision
Her happier eyes are blest.

O joy of joys ecstatic!
A glad cry strikes her dumb
With gladness, calling to her,
“Come down! our lord has come!”

Then, then, the glorious angels
That guard her, smile and know.
Heaven's blessedness at times is shown
To mortals yet below.

QUEEN ELEANOR'S VENGEANCE.

1180.

Queen Eleanor's is a deadly hate,
It dogs her foes down, keen as fate.

And woe to those who the dark Queen scorn:
Better far had they never been born!

Than the Poitevin Queen should have on them frowned,
They'd have better been tracked by a black sleuth-hound.

Be they ever so high who court her frown,
Her Aquitain hate will pull them down.

Be they ever so fair her love who cross,
Let them 'ware of deadly peril and loss.

Let them praise their name-saints, if, in the strife,
They lose all else, and yet 'scape with life.

Woe and woe to Lord Clifford's daughter!
Eleanor's fiercest hate has sought her,

Sought her fiercely and sought her long,
On the false king's leman to wreak her wrong.

A wrong not she will tamely endure,
That the Clifford's blood alone can cure;

For she of Poitou will heap on her worse
Than empty scold and womanish curse.

And the parching thirst of the South Queen's rage,
The bowl or the steel shall alone assuage:

The draught from the bowl, or the stab from the steel,
That her own right hand shall give or shall deal;

The bowl fierce thrust on the trembling hand
Of the white fair thing that can hardly stand;

The stab that's dealt through the horror flung
To her feet, while her curse in its ears is rung;

These alone shall assuage her hate;
One shall be his Rosamond's fate.

Well had the King his treasure concealed,
Long was she sought through wood and through field.

Long was she sought through road and through way,
Ere that she fell the dark Queen's prey.

For gold, what cannot be bought with gold?
To the South Queen's ears the secret's told.

Death laughs out in her bitter laugh;
Vengeance shall not be glutted but half.

Now to her robe let his minion cling!
Not hers the grasp of the doting King.

Now let a voice hiss into her ear,
Not his honied words, but the frenzy of fear!

Now let curses stay her breath
With the anguish of sudden and certain death

Ho! ho! then, Woodstock holds the eyes
That 'witch a King of his smiles and sighs!

A laggard is hate, if flits an hour
Ere Eleanor seeks the Clifford's bower;

For, warring in Aquitain, far away
Is he, to her hate, who had barred the way.

And God her soul from His good grace spurn,
If the Clifford have life when the King return.

Gold the clue from her guard has charmed;
Gold has the minion's guard unarmed.

O but the dark Queen's face was fixed
To the look of hell as the draught she mixed!

And O but hell to her fierce eyes rose,
As from many a dagger the keenest she chose!

Woe, O woe, for the golden-haired,
For whom her King has so softly cared!

Woe, O woe, for the blue soft eyes
That, woe for them! won a kingly prize!

O woe for the cheek and the lip so red,
That shall whiten so soon to the hue of the dead!

And woe, thrice woe, for the rounded form
That soon not a kiss of its King shall warm!

And woe, thrice woe, for the rose-sweet breath,
So soon to be still'd for ever by death!

The Queen has left her secret room,
And horses are led out by page and groom;

In the saddle, her men-at-arms, fierce and still,
Sit ready to do her dark, fierce will.

Woe, O woe, to green Woodstock's rose,
If grasped by such rude, wild hands as those!

Iron hands, and hearts that, in sooth,
As little know, as their poignards, of ruth;

Men of Poitou and of Aquitain race,
Keen to read their Southern Queen's face:

Men that on Henry's self had trod
At a flash of her eye or a meaning nod;

Bloodhounds fell, that she holds in the slip,
Loosed by her frown or the curl of her lip.

Eleanor mounts, and away and away
They ride through the gloom of the darkening day.

The day is lost in a gusty night,
Such tempest as suits her purpose aright.

And homestead and village, as by they sweep,
Feel a shudder of horror thrill through their sleep.

Hours have come and hours have gone,
But still that terrible hate rides on.

Hours have come and hours have past;
Hushed Woodstock's streets are reached at last.

Cool and fresh is the midnight breeze
That stirs green Woodstock's sleeping trees;

Yet little the raging Queen recks now,
That the misty midnight cools her brow;

She hears not, she, the town's quick stir,
The casements opened to gaze on her.

Death, her thought is of death alone,
Of a white dead face and a last deep groan.

No, not to save broad England's crown,
Would she miss the joy with which she leaps down.

Adown she lights. Lord Christ! may few
Of earth feel the hate that thrills her through!

O but it gladdens the heart of hell
To feel the fire of a rage so fell!

It nears to one, and before the hour,
The grim Queen's at the Clifford's bower.

O, ere the morning has grown to two,
That hand has a fearful deed to do!

And, ere the morning has passed to three,
Those eyes have a ghastly sight to see.

O fearfulest deed! and O ghastliest sight!
That best had been hidden in dreariest night!

The guards the door of the bower undo;
In her hand is the end of the maze's clue;

With fast-set teeth and a tiger tread,
Swift and softly she tracks the thread.

A dread flits with her across the grass,
And the laurels shiver to feel her pass.

The heart of the maze her stern feet reach,
And a low laugh's laughed that is more than speech.

Dim before her rises the tower
That holds the sweetness of Woodstock's flower:

Rose, how soon, with a pitiless scorn,
From its sweet young hold upon life, to be torn!

Rosamond stirs in her slumber deep;
What is the terror that shakes her sleep?

Rosamond starts from her ghastly dreams:
What is the sound that to hear she seems?

Is it the dreamt-of terror that's there?
Is it a foot on the creaking stair?

Hark! she stiffens up white in bed;
Whom will it bring, that mounting tread?

Well may the blood to her cold heart start!
Who is it tears her curtains apart?

She tries to shriek, but her tongue is dumb:
Woe! woe! the meeting, so feared, has come!

“Mercy!” she reads that gaze aright,
Of the whelpless wolf or the hungered kite.

“Mercy!” Christ! in that fierce, quick breath.
Is panted the horror of sure, sharp death!

Out she flings her upon the floor,
As the grim Queen closes the chamber's door.

Heaped on the trembling floor she lies,
White as the dead 'neath those dreadful eyes.

Eyes that are filled with the fire of hell,
As shiver and shudder her prey's throes tell.

As over her prey she stands and looks down,
On her who must play with a Queen for a crown.

But the game is played, and lost is the stake,
And the winner is here the forfeit to take.

Heaven and hell have heard her vow;
Heaven and hell know its fell truth now.

What! and is this the head that would rest
Its golden curls upon Henry's breast!

What! are these the fingers, slight as a girl's,
The fingers that wound them in Henry's curls!

What! these are the white, round arms, that could find
No form but a King's round which to wind!

A King's! and darker, and yet more grim,
Grows the fell Queen's look as she thinks of him.

A King's! and dread are the words that meet
The aching ears at her ruthless feet.

Curse and scorn, that they quiver to hear,
With a half-dead heart and a sickening fear.

Curses that blast, and withering scorn;
Jesu! O had she never been born!

Jesu! O that the earth would break,
And straight the quick to the dead would take!

“Up, foul minion! your foul joy's past;
“Hate, and not love, is here at last

“What! you must toy with a crownèd king,
“With the hand that God saw set on this, this ring!

“Up! swore I not that we should meet?
“Up! ere I tread you beneath my feet.

“Mercy? No, not in life nor death:
“The air is hell while it holds your breath.

“Mercy? Yes, for body and soul,
“Such mercy as lurks in this poniard and bowl.

“Well did you plot my mercy to earn!
“Rise! How, minion, your prayers I spurn!

“Thus I laugh at your vain despair;
“Rise, ere I tear you up by the hair.

“Rise, and shudder! I, Eleanor, I
“Hiss in your ears: Arise, and die!”

Up she rises, a ghastly sight;
O but her lips are cold and white!

O but white is her ghastly cheek!
And O but what horror her fixed eyes speak!

Vacant of sense her glassy stare
On the cup thrust out, and the keen knife bare.

Her stare, that seems not to understand
What glares from each stony, outstretched hand

Her stare, that sees all as if it seemed,
As if but a feverish dream it dreamed.

Yet real is the steel and real the draught,
The steel to be felt, or the death to be quaffed.

Real the ghastly hush that she hears,
And the ghastly “Choose!” that thrills through her ears.

Which shall she seize, and which refuse?
For ever she hears that murderous “Choose!”

“Choose, ere my dagger loose you to tell
“The tale of your cursèd shame to hell!”

Not the stab from her hands! not a touch from them!
Swift her fingers clutch on the gold cup's stem.

As if life were hateful, at once she drains
The draught, till no fearful drop remains.

As if life were fled from, and death were sweet
She drinks, and lies at the fierce Queen's feet.

And sharp and shrill is her one wild cry,
“O God, but to see my boys ere I die!

“O Henry!” and with that name, her breath
Flutters and stills to stirless death.

The deed is done, the deed of hell;
What the grim Queen feels what tongue may tell!

As she looks a look at the staring clay,
And wordless and frowning turns away.

Yet again she turns and stoops her down,
And darker and feller yet grows her frown.

A fair long tress her dagger has shorn;
That tress her page to the King has borne.

“A wifely gift to the Queen's Lord sent.”
O but the grim King strode his tent,

With a wounded lion's grow! and glare,
As he ground his teeth o'er the pale tress there.

As through his set teeth there raged an oath,
And he plighted again, to the dead, his troth.

And an oath of vengeance he fiercely swore
To the white cold one he should see no more.

Well for you is it, darksome Queen,
The ocean rolls you and your Lord between!

Else small his mercy, and short the shrift
Of her who her hand 'gainst the Clifford dared lift.

Yet better were that than your fearsome doom,
That gives you, Queen, to a living tomb;

That gives your fierce life, day by day,
In a dungeon's darkness to chafe away,

To chafe and to rage, and to vainly tear
At the grate that bars you from light and air,

Your rage or your patience to him the same
To whom your token of vengeance came.

Till your blood grow tame and your fierce heart feel
For pardon it well could grovel and kneel.

For the feel of the breeze and the warm free sun,
It could half wish its vengeful deed undone.

In Godstowe nunnery's shadowy gloom,
Was “Rosa Mundi” carved on a tomb,

And the tomb's side white fair roses crept up,
Cunningly twined round a carven eup.

Prayed for with mass and with holy prayer,
Chant and hymn, the Clifford lay there.

Still and carven in fair white stone,
She lay in the quiet choir alone,

Till Lincoln's bishop, Hugh, passed that way,
And enter'd the holy choir to pray,

And seeing that tomb, more fair than all,
With its lights of wax and its silken pall,

And learning there Henry's light love lay,
Commanded straight she be borne away,

Holding her pomp the Church's disgrace,
Spurning her sin from its resting-place.

Now, Mary Mother, more mercy show,
Than living, or dead, she knew below!

Now God, from her soul, assoil all sin,
And give her at last unto bliss to win!

For what better bait can the Devil fling
For a woman's soul, than the love of a King?

Heaven rest her soul, and shield us all,
And aid us to stand, and not to fall!

And, Mary Mother, give us to rest
At last in bliss with the Saints so blest!

IN WARWICK CASTLE.

1460.

O Axe, blue axe, rejoice;
O thirsting block have cheer;
I hear a welcome voice;
It tells your feast is near;
Upon your seaffold board
Shall lie right royal food;
Of blood of knight and lord,
Your wine shall be right good;
The feast is heaped and choice;
Red block, blue axe, rejoice.

O thirsting sword, have joy;
Whet thee in tower and hall;
From peace's dull annoy
Thou shalt have festival;
Thou shalt have fierce glad dance,
Shrill song from fosse and field,
Rounds shared with helm and lance,
Songs clashed from mail and shield;
O sword, be keen to hear;
Thy time of joy is near.

O towers and silent halls,
Great Warwick's bowers give ear;
Mirth shall be in your walls;
Gladness shall cast out fear;

The voice that throneth kings,
It comes, the Neville's voice;
Triumph and rule it brings;
Vengeance it brings; rejoice;
O mighty hold, take cheer,
Your hour of rule is near.

O throne, that hath foul scorn
That on thy seat should sit
One, for the cloister, born,
But for a shaveling, fit,
Rejoice; swift comes the hour,
When thou shalt proudly bear,
Of kings, the noble flower,
Of York, the glorious heir;
Joy, Warwick brings to thee,
Edward, thy lord to be.

BEFORE BOSWORTH FIELD.

1484.

The winter it is here;
In woods no small birds sing;
The forest it is drear,
But t'will green again in spring;
The throstle sweet will sing;
O for summer we are fain,
For the bright suns that will bring
Our red, red rose again.

Round tower and turret sad
The storm-wind coldly blows,
But burgh and hall will glad
When leaves are here for snows.
And it's O for merry May
And swallows from the main;
O England will be gay
When the red rose comes again!

There's grief in Clifford's towers;
There's wail in Warwick's halls;
No voice in Percy's bowers
To feast and tourney calls;
They're far who should bear sway;
They're banished who should reign
But heads for all shall pay
When the red rose blooms again.

O harp, my harp, so long
That dared not wake thy voice;
Thy time is near for song;
Thy hour comes to rejoice;
A whisper's in mine ear
That to tell to thee I'm fain;
They come who'll free thy fear;
Our red rose comes again.

THE MARTYRDOM OF RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

1555.

O our God, be Thou our succour! O our God, be Thou our rock,
Our sure defence, the staff and stay of Thine afflicted flock,
Thy flock that groan in terror of the evil of their days,
Thy flock that through their sins are doomed to walk through thorny ways!
Who 'gainst the hate and wrath of men, save Thou, canst be our stay?
Weak is the flesh and faint the heart, O be with us this day!
The scorn and ill-repute of men are theirs who Thine would be;
The dungeon and the rending rack would part us, Lord, from Thee;
O Lord, with tears of blood we weep; our trembling cry goes up.
If it please Thee, O, from our lips, remove this bitter cup!
Have pity, Lord, upon Thine own, for all is fear and gloom,
And we who sang in joy Thy praise, faint at our coming doom.
O must Thy saints, so blest of late, live but their woe to weep!
Why, Shepherd, to the rending wolves, hast Thou thus left Thy sheep!
Red are our sins, O Lord, we know. To Thee our hearts are known,
Yet, O afflict us not so sore! have mercy on Thine own!
Or, if it be Thy righteous will, by man our blood be spilt,
O strengthen us, in death, to say, “Lord, be it as Thou wilt!”
O make us strong to bear Thy cross! Thou, Father, only Thou
Canst lead us joyful through the fires of hell that gird us now;
Canst bid us, filled with love of Thee, amid the torturing flame,
Forget all but to show to men the glory of Thy name;
Shuddering we think of what our eyes have looked upon this morn,
Thy saintly ones, Thy holy two, brought forth with curse and scorn,
The stake, the chains, the faggots heaped around the holy twain,
Yet we remember too their faith triumphant over pain;
If theirs our doom, O give us, Lord, like them to play our parts;
Give us, like them, to know but Thee, even with our dying hearts!

With prayers and praise and joyful hymns, even with expiring breath,
Bid us show forth our trust in Thee, Thine, Lord, in life and death;
If it be ours to tread to Thee, with them, their fiery way,
O gird us, Lord, to walk their path even as they walked to-day!

Now woe unto thee, Bonner; to thee, fell Gardiner, woe,
Through whom our Zion's temples in ashes are laid low;
God judge thee, Pole, thou Devil's scourge! God judge thee, bloody Queen,
Whose tiger heart hath lighted up the torments we have seen;
O bitter change! O fall from bliss! alas, one little year,
These twain were preaching to God's Church in honour, void of fear;
Then ruled our young Josiah, our Edward undefiled,
Then wide the Gospel's light streamed forth from round our sainted child,
Then shone the one pure perfect faith undimmed throughout the land,
That faith which now is hunted down, its teachers gagged and banned;
That truth that only can be heard from saints' expiring breath,
Not preached in life, but witnessed to in tortures and in death.
Weep, England, tears of blood! sad land, weep for the bitter hour
That here set Anti-Christ on high to raven and devour,
To heap damnation upon souls too weak to win through strife,
Not strong to soar through pain and death to palms and endless life;
Yet, O ye powers of hell, let loose through all our ways, alas!
To tempt and kill, ye devil's spawn of Jesuit, monk and mass,
Lo, look on these who died to-day! see how God's saints defy
Your snares and, in your toils beset, triumphant, joy to die!

As lambs unto the slaughter, from the Tower, where they had lain,
They brought them to false judges here in Oxford to be slain,
To Weston and to Tresham, hot to earn the devil's wage,
To Smith, filled 'gainst the faithful with the renegade's fell rage,
To Cambridge's sleek Gallios whose bellies are their god,
To Oxford knaves with souls for sale to earn curst Bonner's nod;
Red-robed, as though their thirst for blood their Doctors' frocks had dyed,
Before St. Mary's altar, fierce they sat, in evil pride;

There, like our blessèd Lord, before these Pilates' judgment-seat,
Meek in the midst our saints were set, their evil rage to meet;
Then might the faithful bless the Lord, to witness Ridley's cheer,
To hear him welcome death for Christ, with joy that cast out fear,
And, sight, too blest for weeping, though pitiful to tears,
We saw old father Latimer, bowed down with fourscore years,
We heard his agèd words cut through the Papists' wily toil,
We saw him, strong with strength from God, their wrath and cunning foil,
And, when they doomed him to the fire, “I joy,” he cried, “to die;
“I thank my God who's spared me thus His name to glorify.”

O misty autumn morning! O bright October day,
Whose fame exulting saints shall show till earth shall pass away,
O with what hearts within us, we oped our heavy eyes
To look upon the day that brought our brethren's sacrifice!
With leaden feet, all clogged with woe, that might not heavier be,
We trod the city's ways, thick-thronged the evil sight to see;
Nor long we waited for our saints; to where, upon the north,
The ditch is, against Baliol's gates, they brought the dear ones forth;
They came, begirt with armèd men, with bailiff, monk and mayor,
And, over all commanding, rode the fierce Lord Williams there;
In furred black gown, paced Ridley first, so garbed, you might have guessed,
From velvet cape and cap, he deemed this day well worth his best;
Firm came he on with calm sweet cheer, as if from care released,
Or rather, with the face one wears who seeks his marriage-feast;
Behind him, toiling on with staff, in frieze frock worn and old,
With kerchiefed head and buttoned cap, to fend his age from cold,
On tottered grandsire Latimer, and well the mournful crowd
Marked how, unto his feeble feet, fell straight and white his shroud;
Beholding them, even fellest foes with sorrow sure were sad
To see the woeful plight of these who late such honour had.
Up to Boccardo's prison-bars, one look they looked to see
If there, to wave farewell to them, Cranmer agaze might be;

Then back unto his aged mate, sweet words did Ridley say,
And he, with merry cheer, quoth, “Fast I'll follow as I may.”
And now is every eye fixed fast and every murmur dumb,
As, through the guarded open space, on to their doom they come.
Yet whiter are the gazers round than they their way who take
To where the heaped-up faggots lie, to where is reared the stake.

RUPERT IS OUT!

1642.

Rupert is out, Rupert is out;
You know it by shrieks and by sobs miles about,
By the crowds, miles around, from his troopers that fly,
By the fires of fair farms that are flushing the sky,
By the fierce looks of those whom, though spared in their lives,
He has left with spoiled homes, he has left with wronged wives;
You may track his curst path, if you, shuddering, list,
By the gashes of those who have dared to resist,
By the corpse of the bullet-slain farmer whose eyes
From his threshold stare up, cries to God in His skies,
By the mother wild-wailing, the daughter with hair
Dishevelled, who hides, 'gainst the earth, her despair;
You may know it by horror and death miles about;
Rupert is out, Rupert is out.

Rupert's away, Rupert's away,
To spoil and to spare not, to fire and to slay;
O flee, ye who can from his pitiless path
Whom the Lord for our sins has let loose in His wrath!

O fair fields of England! O once happy homes
God's vengeance is on ye, wherever he comes;
Our sins were of scarlet, deep-dyed, Lord, were they
When Thou gavest Thine own up to him for a prey;
O brimmed is Thy cup and O bitter Thy wine
We have drank at the hands of this fiend from the Rhine;
O heavy's Thy hand and O biting's Thy scourge;
Must we yet suffer long our transgressions to purge!
O when shall hell hold him, that we, Lord, may say,
Rupert's away, Rupert's away.

THE MARCH TO BRENTFORD OF THE LONDON TRAINED-BANDS.

1642.

Bestir thee, London; slumber not; keep watch and ward, good town.
Be wakeful, as at noontide, though the night is darkening down;
In every home, snatch down the pike; at every gate, set guard;
And let your trained-bands muster quick, in every swarming ward;
Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs haste; quick gather to the call;
For never yet was counsel good more needed in Guildhall;
Each messenger, hot spurring in, to-night brings tidings here
May well make stout hearts hot and bold, and faint ones cold with fear;
For scouts that from the north come in, to our good Mayor, bring word
That but a bare score miles away, they've Rupert's trumpets heard,
And many a flier from his march, who here for refuge comes,
Has fled the swifter that he caught the roll of Charles's drums;
Hour after hour is speeding fast; near come they and more near;
With day, if London stay them not, the Tyrant will be here.

In counsel deep sit Alderman and Counsellor and Mayor;
Stout hearts, I trow, and pious souls and wise grey heads are there;
Not light and worldly ones are they who sit around the board;
But grave men who, by word and deed, still seek to serve the Lord;
Not gay of garb or worldly fair, whom locks and gew-gaws deck,
But sad-attired and sober-souled, of show, who little reck;
And, as their garb, so is their speech; not theirs are brawl or worse,
The lewd talk of the dicer, the courtier's gay-laughed curse;
The weight is laid upon them of their dear souls' precious care,
Of the fear of him who watcheth to take them in his snare;
Therefore they seek by watchfulness, spare speech and guarded thought,
By aid of Him they own their Lord, to act as He has taught.
Therefore, this hour, as evermore, no fear of man they know,
No dread of aught, save but of sin and their soul's ceaseless foe.

Out speaks the Mayor, a stately man with hair as white as snow,
But age is not in his stout words, nor in his eyes' keen glow,
“Let our trained-bands forth to meet them; their van is here with day;
“If London list not to be sacked, its sons their march must stay;
“What though they come with strong array, with trust in horse and sword,
“Our pikes their hosts shall scatter; our faith is in the Lord;
“As David, 'gainst the mighty one, went forth with sling and stone,
“Let our faithful hearts go forth to fight, strong in His strength alone,
“And, even as He hath promised, to those to Him who pray,
“The Lord shall give them to our hands, to tread down and to slay;
“Even as to the Amalakites of old, did Joshua do,
“So will we smite and spare them not and down their captains hew.”
So speaks he and they hear his words as grateful to the Lord,
And a grim murmur of assent rolls round the council-board.

The chains are loosed from 'cross the street; each western gate's flung wide;
The torrent of stout London's pikes is streaming down Cheapside;
By Paul's dark church, through Temple Bar, past Charing Cross they go;
With Thames' full flood sweeps by the tide, with Thames' unceasing flow;

Through Kensington they sweep right on without or stay or rest;
Towards Brentford on and ever on the trained bands hurry West;
On, “For the Houses and the Cause,” “God with us,” is their cry,
Hour after hour, unpausing still, their even ranks go by,
And ever as their bright pikes pass, stout Skippon's eye, before,
“Pray well, my lads; fight well, my boys!” he utters o'er and o'er;
“Pray with a heart, fight with a heart, for all you hold most dear!
“I will be with you in the fight, as I am with you here;
“Think still you fight for God's own cause, for child and wife you fight!
“Pray heartily! fight heartily! your God will bless the right.”

Out, citizen! out, prentice, go! shall London sink in flame?
Shall your dear wives and maidens know the wrong men dare not name?
Shall Rupert's brutal sworders all your ways with horrors fill?
Shall fierce and lewd ones crowd your homes, to plunder, shame, and kill?
Better, upon a bloody field, to conquer or to fall,
Than see your shrieking hearths the prey of the bullies of Whitehall;
Better, in death, for stainless homes, lie stiff and stark and cold,
Than live your children's shrieks to hear, the moanings of your old;
Better, a thousand times, to lie in free and honoured graves,
Than, gagged by Straffords and by Lauds, to breathe the breath of slaves;
Better, on high, through martyrdom, to seek and serve the Lord,
Than know the woes, dealt to the saints, by Bishops and the sword;
For Law, for God, for Right, for Truth, The Houses and the Word,
Forth in the might of prayer and praise! the Lord, your cry, hath heard.

Out, through the drear October morn, slow brightening on to grey;
Out, through the noon's dim brightness, on, through the dark close of day;
With steps, as firm as their stout hearts, sweep by their flashing files;
Towards the foe they stoutly go, with hummed hymns and grim smiles;
By barricades, to bar the streets, should there the fight be fought,
By fort and trench, where tender hands, women's and babes' have wrought,
By farms, sad in the autumn sun, where trembling weak ones stand,
Listening in fear for Rupert's horse, the scourges of our land,

Through villages, whose full-thronged streets are filled with fearful prayer
For them and the Good Cause for which they go the foe to dare,
With the fierce blare of trumpets, the thunder-roll of drums,
Let Essex hear how to his aid, the might of London comes;
Never, when faith and freedom called, was the good City slack;
Never, when wrong was to be fought, held the good City back;
To-day, once more ranked for the right, its foes its strength shall see,
And, from their face, the Tyrant foiled, with all his hosts shall flee.

MARSTON MOOR.

1644.

Hot Rupert came spurring to Marston Moor;
Praise we the Lord!
Came spurring hard with thousands a score;
Praise we the Lord!
Beleageured York, that we lay before,
He knew would be ours ere a week was o'er,
So to scatter our hosts he fiercely swore.
To the Lord our God be glory!

To Newcastle's succour he swore to come;
Praise we the Lord!
And at morning we heard his march's hum;
Praise we the Lord!
And with blare of trumpet and roll of drum,
Into York, in their pride, did the scorners come;
But to-night are the cursing lips not dumb?
To the Lord our God be glory!

God gave them to drink of pride, we knew;
Praise we the Lord!
That His saints His wrath on their hosts might do;
Praise we the Lord!
He bade us flee, that they might pursue,
So, from trench and leaguer, straight off we drew,
But we halted on Marston Moor anew;
To the Lord our God be glory!

There, biding pursuit, stood our long array,
Praise we the Lord!
While slow hours came and passed away;
Praise we the Lord!
“They will not come to the strife to-day,”
We said, and southwards our march then lay,
But the Lord had doomed them that hour our prey;
To the Lord our God be glory!

But Leslie's regiments had left the ground,
Praise we the Lord!
When the fierce Prince bade his trumpets sound;
Praise we the Lord!
Then was spurring and running and fronts faced round,
Upon us they came, with the burst and sound
Of tempests, but ready His own they found;
To the Lord our God be glory!

Then the shot of their guns through our stilled ranks tore;
Praise we the Lord!
Then a pause and a hush fell on the war;
Praise we the Lord!
Then their squadrons thickened, and down once more
Came Rupert and Hell with a rush and a roar,
More fierce and fell than they came before;
To the Lord our God be glory!

With Leslie and Fairfax the saints were few;
Praise we the Lord!
Not theirs the hearts that our God well knew;
Praise we the Lord!
Vessels uncleansed, what could they do?
The godless have ridden them through and through;
The accursëd slay and slay and pursue;
To the Lord our God be glory!

Not so, O Lord, was it with thine own;
Praise we the Lord!
To us were Thy truth and mercy shown;
Praise we the Lord!
Through our closed-up ranks were our trumpets blown;
Then no shout, but a deep psalm rose alone,
And we knew that our God would His might make known.
To His Holy Name be glory!

And Cromwell, His servant, spoke the word;
Praise we the Lord!
“On! smite for the Lord! spare not!” we heard;
Praise we the Lord!
Hotly our spirits within us stirred;
Reins were loosened and flanks were spurred,
And the heathen went down before God and His word.
To His name alone be the glory!

Lo, the bow of the Lord was strung this day;
Praise we the Lord!
And the arm of our God was strong to slay;
Praise we the Lord!
He gave us the proud ones for a prey;
He chased the mighty from out our way;
He gave us the high ones, low, to lay.
To the Lord alone be the glory!

Where are ye, ye noble and ye proud?
Praise we the Lord!
Where are ye who cried 'gainst His saints aloud?
Praise we the Lord!
The great of the earth in death are bowed;
They who vaunted their strength His breath has cowed;
Bloody they lie, where the kite screams loud.
To the Lord our God be glory!

Lo, the Lord our helper, hath heard our cries;
Praise we the Lord!
He hath raised the foolish and shamed the wise;
Praise we the Lord!
In Him, our rock and our sure hope lies;
To Him shall the cry of His servants rise;
Woe to them who His chosen dare despise!
To the Lord our God be glory!

Ho! Baal-priests, did we cry in vain?
Praise we the Lord!
He shall break ye, ye sons of Dagon, again;
Praise we the Lord!
He shall winnow the chaff from the priceless grain;
He shall skim the pot till no dross remain;
And the Lord our God and His saints shall reign!
To the Lord alone be glory!

CORPORAL JOHN,

HIS SOLDIERS' OWN NAME FOR THE Duke of Marlborough. 1711.

Do'nt talk of Schomberg and such to me;
Noll and King William they might be queer
To deal with, but he'd have beat them all three,
Lord! as easy as I'm taking off this beer;
All along I was with him, and I should know,
And I tell you, my boys, the sun never shone
On one that has led a charge here below
That was fit to be named with Corporal John.
Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

At Maestricht's siege I saw him first;
Mynheer fought well and 'twas hard to win;
Monsieur had stormed, but he'd got the worst;
He'd tried right hard, but he couldn't get in;
But Corporal John, he up, with us, there,
And our flag, the breach, he planted upon;
A mine they sprung, but what did he care?
He budged not a foot, did Corporal John.
Oh he was one that always would win
Whatever it was he ventured upon;
Dutchmen or French, didn't matter a pin;
He always beat all, did Corporal John.

Next with the Frenchmen the game we played,
And now 'twas our Corporal held command,
And with Duke and Marshal rare sport he made;
He played the devil with Louis the Grand;
Burgundy vapoured and Tallard swore;
Boufflers gave us a distant look;
He gave us a look, but he didn't do more,
So our Corporal won, and Liege we took.
Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

Bonn, Guelders and Huy, they fell next year,
But, of these, our Corporal didn't think much;
He longed to fight; Villeroi he got near,
But they wouldn't let him, those sleepy Dutch;
Our famousest fight came next, but first,
Over the Schellenberg's heights we stormed,
Into Bavaria fierce we burst
And the cursing boors with their roofs' flames warmed.
Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat,
For all who fought under Corporal John.

August the thirteenth, mark it well!
That was our Corporal's grandest day,
When through marsh and stream and the fire of hell,
Through the Frenchmen's centre we burst our way.
It took us, to do it, from noon to night,
But it was worth doing and well 'twas done;
Thirty thousand it cost them, that Blenheim fight,
And Tallard himself and many a gun.

Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

Villeroi next from Liege we scared;
He hankered to have it: we couldn't consent;
We offered him fight; for his bones he cared;
Our Corporal came, and the Marshal went;
Villeroi ditched and Villeroi dug,
But one night, in the fog, his ditches we crossed,
Behind fort and rampart he thought himself snug,
But we thundered in and his lines he lost.
Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

Then May, good luck and Ramilies, brought,
At Ottomond's tomb, by the red Mehaigne;
To slaughter our Corporal, Villeroi thought,
But the French and their Marshal we threshed again;
Eighty standards and every gun
Our Corporal took that glorious day,
And, with it, the whole of Brabant, we won,
And Louis, from Flanders, he slunk away.
Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

Next year we did nothing: then came July
When they played us three Dukes and we trumped each card;
To see Vendôme and his Princelings fly
Was pleasant, I swear, at Oudenarde;

Now came an Autumn of trench and storm;
Lille was strong, and the French fought well;
Three months it took and the work was warm,
In mine and breach, before that it fell.
Oh Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

At last came our Corporal's bloodiest day;
That was his latest and fiercest fight,
When blood ran in rivers at Malplaquet,
In Tasnière's wood and on Bossou's height.
Of course, we know, battles, they must be fought;
So, for all that comes with them, they're fools who care;
Yet, pah! even now how it sickens my thought
To think of the slaughter that went on there!
Ah Corporal John always fought to beat;
He was the one you could reckon upon;
There was glory and plunder, but never retreat
For all who fought under Corporal John.

UFTON COURT.

Dive, dive, O swallow, dart and dive!
Your joy is changeless, but ours, how short!
So whispers this long-lost home to me,
My boyhood's dwelling of Ufton Court.

O weedy terrace! O silent walks!
O echoing porch! O waters green!
For forty years where the palm-tree waves,
Not such have my dreams of Ufton been!

Not so I saw you in that old time
When love, it struggled, but pride, it won;
When, choked with passion, I left you last,
For the march and camp 'neath an Indian sun.

Not so I saw you, when on our line
The Pindarees' wild horse came down
Not so, 'mid the yell of the roaring breach,
When we storm'd red Bhurtpore's cloven town.

No, all unchanged, in those Eastern dreams,
Your fountain leap'd, and your broad elms swung,
And with one soft laugh, that ever I heard,
With gladness and music, your chambers rung.

The oak is green, and the linnet sings
As sweet a song as ever it sung;
But where is the voice that warbled here
A sweeter music when I was young?

Soft falls the sunlight as then it fell,
On gable, and casement, and garden-wall;
But where is she, to my boyish heart
Who made the gladness of Ufton Hall?

“Or you or I should go,” they said,
“Or you be homeless, or I depart.”
Strange lands they thrust between our love,
But never they thrust us heart from heart!

A differing faith our fathers held;
A differing faith we from them drew;
My curse be on the ancient jars
That help'd to part me, love, from you

My curse be on the bigot hate
That bann'd thy rites, O ancient Hall,
And hunted forth thy outlaw'd priests
From passaged roof and hollow'd wall!

“A boyish passion, a girlish love,
“Let other faces our fancies fill.”
Little they thought would my hair be white,
And her smile in my heart be lonely still.

For forty Springs have your thorn-trees bloom'd,
For forty Autumns your oaks been gold,
Yet the sight of your rising chimneys shook
My blood, as it thrill'd its throbs of old.

Yet ah! how little, as children here,
When these same garden-walks we paced,
We thought that the love we then scarce knew,
They fain would have from our hearts effaced.

Effaced! Our names on the beech then cut,
The beech with years may at last resign,
But never a change my love could know,
And never a change could come to thine.

Ah, well I mind me of that sweet hour
When conscious love to your eyes first came;
No, never I knew their depths to leave,
Or shown or hidden, till death the same.

O hazel eyes, 'mid your soft brown curls,
Fain, fain had hidden them, land and sea!
But ever they lived before my thought,
And ever they look'd their love to me.

For ever they gazed with that parting look
That sware a love that must endure,
The love of the heiress of Ufton Court
For me, her cousin, scorn'd and poor.

Yet never a breath of that sweet love
Or word or letter to me might bear;
Too keen was that mother's cold, proud watch,
But, utter'd or not, that love was there.

Ay, long they pray'd her to wed the Earl,
And long they scoff'd at her idle gloom;
But changeless stole she away from youth,
Stole she unto her early tomb.

And therefore, well, to my aged thoughts,
It seems that, heirless, to stranger hands,
From those who wither'd our joy to grief,
Should pass, old Court, thy Hall and lands.

And now, at length, that I look once more,
Old home, on thee, decay thy fate,
On thee, I say, let the curse work on,
Of the hearts thy pride made desolate.

THE FALSE ALARM.

1805.

Oh they lit the fire on Home Castle,
And, men, you can understand
How, from hill to hill and heart to heart,
The flame leapt through the land.

They lit the fire on Home Castle,
And all the Border through,
In town and vale, on moor and hill,
Full shrill the bugles blew.

For the Frenchmen lay around Boulogne;
We heard their gathering hum,
And we watched and waited for the day,
Their vaunting hosts would come.

As a hundred beacons flared that night,
There were arming, stir and din,
And fast, from far, to port and shore,
The Border gathered in.

On fifty cliffs the flame leapt up,
And all the Border-side,
With fiery hearts and bloody spurs,
Towards the beacons ride.

Oh Roxburghshire rose well that day,
Nor Berwick spared its breath,
Nor Selkirk drew rein for thirty miles
Till they rode into Dalkeith.

Far west is bonny Liddesdale,
But no time her troopers lost;
By noon, full forty miles away,
Each man was at his post.

And Kelso heard the Teviot men
Play, spurring towards the sea,
“Oh, my name it is little Jock Elliot, boys,
And who dare meddle with me?”

The widow sent her only son,
Nor at home would have him bide,
And the new-wed wife sped her husband off.
That night from her loving side.

Oh, had the Frenchmen come that day
They'd have found the Border true
To her old renown, and felt full well,
What Scots can dare and do.

And if the foe should come to-day,
As at times they dare to threat,
They'll find the fire that rose that night
In our hearts is burning yet.

They'll find our Rifles, England through,
As quick to rise and arm
As the Border was that wintry night,
That night of “the False Alarm.”

THE DEEDS OF WELLINGTON.

1852.

Ay, many a year I followed him
Whose course of glory's run;
Draw round me, friends, I'll tell you where
I fought with Wellington.
For I was one who served with him
Through all his fields in Spain;
Ah, friends, his like we ne'er have seen,
Nor yet shall see again!

And well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

From India first we heard his fame;
I was not with him there,
But how he beat them at Assaye,
Old soldiers can declare.
Of his wild dash at Doondiah's horse
I've often heard them tell;
Where there was fighting to be done,
Be sure he did it well.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

'Tis nearly fifty years since then,
Yet well I mind the day
When our first march we made with him
To where the Frenchmen lay;
Upon the heights of Rolica,
Laborde fought long and well;
We beat him; how we beat Junot,
Vimiera's field can tell.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

They lost; we won, and that was all;
Pshaw! blunderers crossed our way;
Sir Hugh, Sir Harry saved Junot,
And flung that work away.

But soon our General led us on,
Unchecked by such as these,
And then we chased their eagles back
Across the Pyrenees.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

Behind the Douro, Soult lay—safe?
Why, in his face, 'twas forced!
“Ha! Ha!” he laughed, and watched us come,
And while he laughed, we crossed;
We saw their backs; and that same year,
At Talavera, plain
We showed their Victor that we came
To see their backs again.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

Retreat came next. What? did we fly?
No! On Busaco's height
We turned, and taught Massena there
We little thought of flight;
A month at Torres Vedras' lines
We let the Marshal lie,
He chafed and fumed, and then, at last,
He learned what 'twas to fly.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

They foiled us once at Badajos;
Good Lord! that work was warm!
It makes one white, to think of, now,
The night we tried to storm.
But its time came; in that curs'd breach,
By Heaven! the French fought well,
But on through blood and fire we went;
In yells and shrieks, it fell.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

I swear it warms my blood again,
Although my hair is grey,
To think of how we beat Marmont
On Salamanca's day;
And 'twas a sight to see, my friends,
When our great captain, 'mid
The rescued city's tears and shouts,
Rode into freed Madrid.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done.
The world shall tell the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

Somehow, at Burgos we were checked;
At times the greatest are;
One failure he could well afford;
'Twas there I got this scar.
A winter more, and then for France
We marched; he knew it well,
And, rising in his stirrups, cried,
“To Portugal, farewell.”

Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall tell the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

For France! for France! but, hold, good sirs,
King Joseph stopped us here;
Well, red Vittoria swept our path,
And left the roadway clear.
And, long before November passed,
We rolled back Soult's advance,
We poured through St. Sebastian's breach,
And trod the soil of France.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall tell the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

We won Toulouse, and, winning that,
We heard that all was won;
Seven weary years of war were gone;
Our work and his was done.
We little thought he yet would meet
A greater than he'd met;
We never dreamed he had to win
His sternest victory yet.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

But so it was; a year passed by,
And, passing, proved it true;
And I was with him once again
At far-famed Waterloo.

And I, I heard his “At them, men!”
When the Old Guard seemed to yield;
I shared in that last charge that swept
The French from his last field.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

And so they say that he was one
Not made for love but fear,
A cold, stern man who stood alone:
All this I smile to hear.
Ask those who fought through that great war.
Bled, conquered, by his side,
And who'll not name his name with love,
And speak of him with pride?
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

I name his name to honour it;
In glory let him rest;
More than all other things I prize
This medal at my breast.
Why, friends? Because it tells that I
Some honour bore away,
With him whom, with a people's grief,
St. Paul's receives to-day.
Oh, well may England honour him!
Till all earth's days are done,
The world shall hear the deeds he did,
The deeds of Wellington.

THE DEATH-MARCH OF WELLINGTON.

1852.

“Whom bear you thus with heavy tread,
“With arms reversed, and brows deprest?”
“Comrade, we bear the mighty dead
“In glory to his place of rest.
“A nation throngs the city's ways,
“In grief for him whose race is run;
“On, in dark state, beneath their gaze,
“Comrade, we bear great Wellington.”
March, slowly march. Hark! in the hush, I hear
Assaye's hurrah, and Badajos's cheer.

Yes, o'er him let the trumpet wail,
And round him roll your muffled drums;
In this last hour, who now shall fail
In open grief for him who comes?
Its solemn swell the Dead March pour,
In grief for him whose deeds are done;
Grief, let the mighty cannon roar,
As on we bear great Wellington.
March, silent march. Hark! in the hush, I hear
Vittoria's shout, and Salamanca's cheer.

On, bear him on to where they sleep,
Our greatest, whom we name with pride;
Lay him by Moore, in slumber deep;
Lay him by Abercrombie's side.

100

Nay, place him by the only one
Who fixed, with him, red Victory's smile;
Room for the dead, by him who won
For us Trafalgar and the Nile;
On, bear him on. Hark! in the hush, I hear
Toulouse's charge and St. Sebastian's cheer.

Throw wide the doors; dust unto dust;
O'er him the yawning marble close;
Give him to death with trembling trust,
Calm in his last stern cold repose.
In reverent silence, in the gloom
Brooding beneath the mighty dome,
Conqueror, to share the conquered's doom,
Leave him to fame in his last home.
March, comrades, march. Hark! in the hush, I hear
Quatre Bras' hurrah, and Waterloo's fierce cheer.

COSSACK WE WILL NEVER BE.

1853

“In fifty years Europe will be Republican or Cossack.” Napoleon Bonaparte.

Hark! I hear a warning voice;
St. Helena sends it forth:
“Fated Europe, make thy choice,
Chains or freedom—West or North;
Choose; ere fifty years are by,
Europe shall be wholly free,
Or in fetters doomed to lie,
Cossack, Europe, thou shalt be.”

101

So that stern voice of the past
Spoke full thirty years ago;
Still it speaks, and, roused at last,
Well its meaning now we know;
Yes, we hear it, and reply,
All our danger now we see;
Free we'll live, and free we'll die;
Cossack, we will never be.

Long, too long, with coward fears,
Have we made the despot strong,
While through nations' blood and tears,
On he marched from wrong to wrong;
Bolder—year by year, more nigh,
All our danger now we see;
Free we'll live, and free we'll die;
Cossack, we will never be.

Boldly Poland fought our fight;
Poland had our hopes and fears;
Hungary stood for Europe's right;
Europe helped her but with tears:
Shall we now stand trembling by?
No—our danger now we see;
Free we'll live, and free we'll die;
Cossack, we will never be.

More than wishes—Europe's swords,
Turkey needs to foil the Czar;
Soon or late, we front his hordes,
Forced to fling them back with war

102

Strike, and “freedom” be our cry;
All our danger now we see;
Free we'll live, and free we'll die;
Cossack, we will never be.

HARK! THE WOLVES ARE ON THE TRACK.

1853.

From Siberia's frozen wastes,
Fast from Finland, rank on rank,
Towards the Danube's gory bank,
Hot for blood each myriad hastes.
Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

From the pastures of the Don,
Grassy plain and desert steppe,
Horde on horde, they southward sweep;
Tramp on tramp, they hasten on.
Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

Frigid Lap and fiery Sclave,
Lett and Russian pour to war;
Poland sends her thousands far,
In the South to find their grave.

103

Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

South, the savage Bashkir rides;
South, the Calmuck takes his way;
Fast, his bloody thirst to slay,
South, the wandering Tartar guides.
Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

From the White Sea's icy shore
To the Caspian's lonely coasts,
Not a land, but swells their hosts,
Swells the tribes that swarm to war.
Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

Hear you not the Cossacks' tread?
See their countless lances flash!
South, the Ukraine's shepherds dash
Field and march to heap with dead.
Hark! the wolves are on the track
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

Fast their millions hear the call;
Fast they muster; but the prey,
Grim and gory, stands at bay,
Stands to fight and not to fall.
Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

104

Let the earth-god of the North
Wisely gather back his might;
Lo! the West defends the right!
Not to conquer comes he forth.
Hark! the wolves are on the track.
Up, brave hunters, beat them back.

BALACLAVA.

October 25th, 1854.

Balaclava, Balaclava,
Far thy still and grassy plain
Thick is strewn with England's bravest,
High is heaped with England's slain;
Shot and shell have done their work well;
They shall never charge again,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
O'er thy still and grassy plain.

Balaclava, Balaclava,
Fast the foes, across thy plain,
Foot and horse, and battery hurried,
From our hold thy port to gain;
On they pressed, they thought to triumph,
On their squadrons pressed in vain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Pressed to death across thy plain.

105

On that bright October morning,
From thy hills across thy plain,
Fast we saw their squadrons pouring,
Saw the scared Turk fly in vain,
Shelter from the savage Cossack,
Flying towards our ranks to gain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Falling fast along thy plain.

From thy mountain gorges pouring,
Pouring onward o'er thy plain,
Forward swept he Russian squadrons,
On their horsemen swept in vain;
In their forward path, the Campbell
Stretched his Scots, and piled their slain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Piled them thick upon thy plain.

From thy mountain gorges pouring,
Pouring onward o'er thy plain,
Forward swept their squares of horsemen.
On, their horsemen swept in vain;
Scot and Enniskillen met them,
Hot their sheltering guns to gain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Fast they fled across thy plain.

Then it was, when victory crowned us,
Madness made that victory vain;
Curses on the lordly blindness
Then, that launched us to be slain!
Curses on the idiot blindness
Then, that bade us charge in vain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Charge to death across thy plain!

106

“Forward!” was the fatal order;
“Charge! the captured guns regain!”
Not a man but knew that order
Madly sent him to be slain;
Not a man but knew that surely
On he went a grave to gain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Flung to death across thy plain.

Yet though death lay sure before us,
Death lay surely there in vain;
Not a man a moment lingered;
None in that dread charge drew rein.
Teeth we clenched, and brows we knitted,
Strung our nerves to fierce disdain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Scorn of death upon thy plain.

Then swept o'er us, then swept through us,
Grape and shell, and, lane on lane,
Tore the shattering round-shot through us,
Certain of a mark so plain;
Fire to left, to right was hell-fire;
On, the guns we charged to gain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Swept us down upon thy plain.

What could stay us? Who amongst us
Thought to turn, as o'er thy plain,
Reaped in that dread hour by hundreds,
Down we went 'neath that fierce rain?
What could turn us? what could stay us;
Vain their fire, their squadrons vain;
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Through them, rode we o'er thy plain.

107

Down before us go their horsemen;
On, the sought-for guns we gain;
Lanced or sabred fall their gunners,
But their guns we win in vain;
Few shall turn; an army fronts us;
Who shall life and safety gain,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Charging back across thy plain?

What could stay us? backward charging,
Reeling through that iron rain,
Fiercely through their horsemen rode we,
Through their fierce fire rode again;
Few we rode; how few! and fewer,
Gashed and grim, at last drew rein,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
From that death-ride o'er thy plain.

Balaclava, Balaclava,
Far thy red and reeking plain
Thick is strewn with England's bravest,
High is heaped with England's slain;
Shot and shell have done their work well;
Never may such hearts again,
Balaclava, Balaclava,
Ride such death-ride o'er thy plain!

108

INKERMANN.

November 5th, 1854.

When we went up the hills of the Alma,
Through their hell-fire of shell and of shot,
We did a good day's work that morning,
And, boys, a good drubbing they got;
But though they'll remember September,
They'll think of it, lads, but as play
To the work of this fifth of November,
And the drubbing they got, lads, to-day.
Then a sigh for all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

Wet and weary we dragged from the trenches,
And dark lay the camp, boys, and still;
Thick as night lay the mist in the valley,
And thickly it clung to the hill;
But little we thought what 'twas hiding
As we turned into slumber, how deep!
And little we knew what the roar meant
That startled us soon, lads, from sleep!
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

Below they had mustered their thousands;
The night and the fog hid them well;
Before we could see, they were on us
With shot and with thrust and with yell;

109

They swept back our pickets, and yelling,
Right up straight upon us they come;
Fifty thousand they come to our seven,
Mad-drunk with religion and rum.
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they soon come again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

Little time, lads, they gave us for forming;
“Right forward—quick step,” was the word;
And ere well awake, we were at it
With Minie, and bayonet, and sword;
Up they come; up the hill press their masses;
With shouts and with volleys we close,
Hacking on—thrusting on, though we barely
Could tell, through the fog, who were foes.
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

We were but a handful to them, boys,
But not a heart 'mongst us all sank,
As we dashed at their grey-coated columns
That swept round us front, lads, and flank;
If they could not well see us, I swear, men,
Our ranks they could hear well and feel,
As we swept them down, volley by volley,
And gave them their fill of the steel.
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

110

But tough work it was you may know, lads;
Driven down, still they swarmed up again;
For hours they came on still and on, lads,
Though we heaped up the hill with their slain;
'Twas a hell upon earth there that morning,
With oaths, and with yells, and with groans,
As we fought till our last charge was gone, boys,
And then with clubbed rifles and stones.
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

'Twas a sight to shake stout hearts, I tell you,
Their rush on our unarmed redoubt;
Six times there they fought their way in, boys;
Six times there we tumbled them out;
But what could we do 'gainst their numbers?
Surrounded and falling, how fast!
Overpowered, worn out, but still fighting,
Forced back there, we gave ground at last;
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

Back, foot by foot, fighting, they bore us,
And half, all was over, we feared,
When the cry rose, “the French, the French come, boys,
“The Red-caps” then, God! how we cheered!
And on at a run came their Zouaves;
A shout, and on with them we go;
The Russians are flung from the hill-top;
The day is our own, well we know;

111

Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

But that day was a day to remember;
And all who came safe through that strife,
Well that night might thank heaven that watched o'er them
And brought them safe through it with life;
Yes, we well might thank heaven that night, lads,
As on that red hill-top we stood,
That, safe there, the day was our own, boys,
Though bought, lads, with England's best blood!
Give a sigh to all those who are gone, boys,
But fill up, all you who remain;
We'll drink, “May they come soon again, boys,
That soon we may drub them again!”

THE TRICOLOR.

A CRY FOR EUROPEAN FREEDOM. 1855.

When will the nations be up once more,
With a shout that shall ring from shore to shore,
And Europe's despots go down before
The flaunt of our flag—the Tricolor?
Palsied and hagridden Europe seems,
Tranced and tortured in evil dreams,
But hard she breathes and turns her o'er;
Let her wake to the flap of the Tricolor!

112

The render of chains—the Tricolor,
The planter of rights—the Tricolor,
Oh that the people's ranks once more
Were flaunting onward the Tricolor!

Frenchmen, ground 'neath a despot's heel,
When will you turn on the girdling steel?
Paris, will it be long before
St. Antoine's up for the Tricolor?
Mutterers by the thrice-freed Seine,
When will your barricades rise again?
When will your Marseillaise once more
Be thundered out 'neath the Tricolor?
‘Eighty-nine's’ flag—the Tricolor,
‘Thirty's’ banner—the Tricolor,
When will ‘Forty-eight's’ ranks once more,
Conquer a crown 'neath the Tricolor?

Shall not Naples' Bourbon hear
A shout that shall smite him white with fear?
Shall not Sicily strike once more,
Armed and ranked, for the Tricolor?
Freedom yet shall make her home
In a proud Milan, and a priestless Rome,
And Florence shall yet take heart once more
For her old free life, 'neath the Tricolor.
Mazzmi's banner—the Tricolor,
Garibaldi's colours—the Tricolor,
The South's republics shall live once more,
Chainless again 'neath the Tricolor.

How long will Cliquot befool and lie;
Nor fear that his Berliners' hour is nigh?

113

Brandenburgh oaths will serve no more,
When Prussia takes to the Tricolor.
For another March will the dotard wait?
For the vengeance that's due for ‘Forty-eight?’
To Potsdam shall he not fly once more,
Hunted forth by the Tricolor?
The righter of wrongs—the Tricolor,
The smiter of thrones—the Tricolor,
Let Potsdam's pedant grow wise before
His Prussians take to the Tricolor!

Darkly St. Stephen's tower looks down
On lowering brows in Vienna's town,
On lips that mutter yet more and more
Of days that shall come with the Tricolor.
Austrians, when will the glad time come
When German thoughts must no more be dumb,
When Hapsburg and Croat will fly before
The shouts that herald the Tricolor?
Bohemia's dream—the Tricolor,
Proud Hungary's hope—the Tricolor,
Lombardy's heart is strong once more,
As she flushes and thinks of the Tricolor

Gagged and fettered by cowl and crown,
Hungary crouches, Cossacked down:
Pesth, how long will it be before
Your walls shall fling out the Tricolor?
Kossuth watches and waits afar;
In the leash are Honved and fierce hussar
Guyon, the Austrian squares, once more
Will thunder through, with the Tricolor.

114

The Magyar's thought—the Tricolor,
The Hapsburg's terror—the Tricolor,
When will Klapka's hussars once more
Spur to the charge for the Tricolor?

That order reigns that trod down souls
When Diebitsch butchered Grokow's Poles;
Shall not that order be rent once more
When Warsaw raises the Tricolor?
Poland, how we hunger to hear
Your thunder-tramp and your lancers' cheer,
When the snow-white eagle streams once more
To the charge, by the side of the Tricolor!
Kosciusko's standard—the Tricolor,
Dombrowski's banner—the Tricolor,
Oh that your pennons were launched once more
On the Russian squares, for the Tricolor!

Northward, each despot looks afar
For the help of each tyrant's prop—the Czar,
But westward the Cossack spurs no more
Again to trample the Tricolor.
For at home for him the Western swords
Have carved out work for his swarming hordes,
And conquering Europe shakes no more
At the frowns of the foe of the Tricolor.
Alma's colours—the Tricolor,
The Tchernaya's flag—the Tricolor,
Calmuck and Tartar have learned once more
To fly from the flap of the Tricolor.

In each despot's halls is a nameless dread,
A haunting terror at board and bed;

115

Tyrants listen from shore to shore,
For the cry that shall come with the Tricolor.
The nations gagged, and blinded, and bound,
Harken too for the stormy sound,
The sound that to rend and to loose once more,
Shall conquering come with the Tricolor.
Freer of thought—the Tricolor,
Looser of lips—the Tricolor,
Souls and tongues shall be fettered no more
When thrones go down 'neath the Tricolor.

OUR GUARDS.

Whose tramp comes sounding to us
From all our fields of glory?
Whose cheers are ringing through us
From all our martial story?
'Tis our Guards' tramp, onward ever,
Nor steel nor cannon heeding;
'Tis our Guards' cheer, silent never,
When, their cheers, their land is needing;
Through the fiercest hours of battle,
Flames the lightning of their swords,
Rolls their rifles' volleying rattle,
As, to victory, go the Guards.

From Marlborough's fields of glory,
Their flags renown are bearing;
Of Wellington's great story,
The fame, those flags are sharing;

116

O banners, fiercely streaming,
Your shot-rent tatters under,
How oft their bayonets' gleaming
Has crushed the battle's thunder!
The centuries, onward ranging,
Still conquering find their swords;
Whatever else is changing,
Unchanged are still the Guards.

Up, through the dread breach, pouring,
Gay, in the shell-swept trenches,
On, through the batteries' roaring,
Our English Guard ne'er blenches;
Not theirs the hearts to shame us;
The fields their fathers vaunted,
To-day, with fields as famous,
They match with ranks undaunted;
If Victory ever doubt, boys,
Above the game of swords,
She's ours, when rings the shout, boys,
“Make room there for the Guards.”

117

GOD BLESS THE DEAR OLD LAND.

A SONG FOR AUSTRALIA. 1865.

A thousand leagues below the line, 'neath southern stars and skies,
'Mid alien seas, the land that's ours, our own new England lies;
From North to South, six thousand miles heave white with ocean foam
Between the old dear land we've left and this our new-found home;
Yet what though oceans roll between, though here this hour we stand!
Our hearts, thank God! are English still; God bless the dear old land!
“To England!” men, a bumper brim; up, brothers, glass in hand;
“England!” I give you, “England!” boys; “God bless the dear old land.”

To some we see around us here, it may be, she was stern;
It may be, in her far-off fields they scarce their bread could earn;

119

But though we thought our mother hard, we know now she was wise
To drive us out to this new land that every need supplies;
We left her side with heavy hearts; we hardly thought that then
We left her, soon with honest work to make us happy men;
Then to her name a bumper brim; up, brothers, glass in hand;
“Our motherland!” here's “England” boys! “God bless the dear old land.”

And what though far she's sent us from her side! we love her yet;
Her love we think of more and more; her coldness we forget;
As northwards faint her dim cliffs died, how clung our eyes to her!
Each league that thrust us farther off, the more her sons we were;
And now our new land's dear to us, dear as it is, we own
Yet dearer still is the old land, our native land alone;
Then to her name a bumper brim; up, brothers, glass in hand;
“Our native land!” here's “England!” boys; “God bless the dear old land.”

It may be she would call us back, back to her side again,
And bid us bring the wealth to her we've won beyond the main;
Sweet it would be her fields to see; but, dear to me and you,
Although the far old home may be, dear too we'll make the new;
True to the land we're treading, boys, that's now our own, we'll be,
Howe'er our hearts may yearn to her, our mother o'er the sea;
We've love for both; we're proud of both; but up, men, glass in hand;
Here's “England—she that gave us birth! God bless the dear old land.”

O what a greatness she make ours! her past is all our own,
And such a past as she can boast, and, brothers, she alone;
Her mighty ones the night of time triumphant shining through,
Of them our sons shall proudly say, “They were our fathers too;”
For us her living glory shines that has through ages shone;
Let's match it with a kindred blaze, through ages to live on;
Thank God! her great free tongue is ours; up, brothers, gla s in hand;
Here's “England, freedom's boast and ours! God bless the dear old land.”

120

For us, from priests and kings she won rights of such priceless worth
As make the races from her sprung, the freemen of the earth;
Free faith, free thought, free speech, free laws, she won through bitter strife,
That we might breathe unfettered air and live unshackled life;
Her freedom, boys, thank God! is ours, and little need she fear,
That we'll allow a right she's given to die or wither here;
Free-born, to her who made us free, up, brothers, glass in hand;
“Hope of the free,” here's “England!” boys; “God bless the dear old land.”

They say that dangers cloud her way, that despots lour and threat;
What matters that? her mighty arm can smite and conquer yet;
Let Europe's tyrants all combine, she'll meet them with a smile;
Hers are Trafalgar's broadsides still, the hearts that won the Nile;
We are but young; we're growing fast; but with what loving pride,
In danger's hour, to front the storm, we'll range us at her side;
We'll pay the debt we owe her then; up, brothers, glass in hand;
“May God confound her enemies! God bless the dear old land.”

THE RAISING OF THE FLAG AT FORT SUMTER,

April 12, 1865.

Now God be praised, ye peoples—yes, your glad Te Deums raise;
To God, our God, be glory still, be thankfulness and praise!
He who fought for us at Naseby and in Worcester's bloody fray,
His right arm shields and succours us, and strikes with us to-day;
He hath chastened us and scourged us sore with misery and defeat;
Through bitter ways that tried our souls He has led our toiling feet;
Because we bore so long with sin and loved the unclean thing,
He has given the agony of years our hearts with tears to wring;
Because to Moloch we bowed down, and ourselves to Mammon sold,
With sacrifice of blood and sin, for the South's accursèd gold,

121

He hath tried us in the furnace, He hath skimmed the vileness off,
He hath made us to our gibing foes a mockery and a scoff,
Till they said, “He hath forsaken them; His servants are our prey.”
But the Lord our God hath heard our cry; He hath struck with us to-day.

Oh, how the heathen triumphed! how our foes dared to rejoice!
There were prophecies on every tongue, and taunts in every voice:
They said, “Let us arise and slay; were not these freemen born,
Like our bondsmen that they'd have free, for our scourgings and our scorn?”
But they who came to scourge and slay, our God gave them to meet,
For glory, shame—for victory, rout—for triumph, sure defeat.
And they who came to bind, are bound—are slain, who came to slay;
He has turned, in mercy, from His own, the vaunters' wrath away.
To Him be glory, Him alone—our shield, our wall, our rock,
Our great salvation, and our stay in the battle's fiery shock.
Where be they now who called on Him, false priests, who mocked His name,
Who, Baal-prophets, called on Him to scorch us in His flame!
Like flax within the furnace, like to stubble in the fire,
Like crackling briers, by us, the Lord consumed them in His ire.

It was upon an April morn, four fearful years ago,
That first the vaunting Southerners the Stars and Stripes hauled low;
That Charles own crowded all the wharves of her rebellious town,
Her cheering roofs and peopled spires, while the old flag went down;
Her heart was brimmed with haughty pride, her lips with scoffs, that morn;
We freemen were her laughs, her jests, her jibes, her jeers, her scorn;
We were but spaniels, made to crouch when she but oped her lip,
Too happy, in her mercy, if we 'scaped the brand and whip.
Whom God has doomed He maddens first; she had no doubts or fears,
She looked not forward to this day through misery, blood, and tears.
She thought not that the cup for us she filled should be her cup;
That to the bitter dregs this hour her lips should drink it up;
The flag that fluttered down that day, to-day on Sumter waves;
Her cannon roar to welcome it across her children's graves.

122

“Who smiteth with the sword,” God saith, “shall perish by the sword.”
She marked not nor remembered that, forsaken of the Lord,
Like Pharoah did He doom her, in His ire, to be laid low,
Because she dealt out hell to men, nor let her bondsmen go.
Her heart He hardened and her eyes He blinded in His wrath
That she might spurn His warnings of the pit within her path.
She saw not then the fiery hand that wrote in gathering gloom,
The “Mene Tekel” on her walls that told her hastening doom.
Ho! women-whippers ply the scourge! toys of your pride and lust,
The chattels that you held not men tread on you in the dust.
The negroes that you scourged and sold, the blacks that you abhorred,
God bids, within your streets to-day, hold over you the sword.
You dared defy the right He spake—spake from His judgment-seat
Therefore this hour in fear you lie beneath your bondsmen's feet.

Yet, preacher of God's truth, to-day—mortal, to whom 'tis given
To tell to man in Sumter's walls the righteous ways of Heaven;
While thou with trembling heart behold'st the sin of years laid low,
Pray that, the evil gone, the All-good fresh vengeance may forego;
That He may bid the tempest hush—the wrath of men be still,
That thy great land, purged in the fire, henceforth may work His will;
That, purified through pain and death—baptized in blood and tears,
Victor and vanquished both may read the judgments of these years.
So shall the anguish ye have sown, the losses which ye weep,
Rise into harvests of all good you and your sons may reap—
That, when they tell to future times of all God by you wrought,
They still may see your strength was still the right for which you fought.
The wrong He smites. Praise to our God! The right He shields and saves.
Thou flag preach this, long as thy pride o'er ball-rent Sumter waves!

123

THE LUCK OF EDEN HALL.

A PRAYER TO THE PEOPLE.

Song, that all wondrous things can save,
Tells how, of old, to Eden's lord
A magic gift the fairies gave,
Some kindly action's rich reward;
A crystal cup, that, safe, no ill
Should unto Eden's race befall;
Theirs should be every blessing still,
While theirs the Luck of Eden Hall.
O, lords of Eden, treasure up
The fairies' gift, your magic cup!

Lands, state and reverence, courage, power,
Wealth that no wildest waste impairs,
Health, genius, every good's their dower,
While the good fairies' gift is theirs.
But let a rash or faithless hand
The magic blessing once let fall,
Lost shall be power, and wealth, and land,
Lost with the Luck of Eden Hall.
O, race of Eden, treasure up
The fairies' gift, your magic cup!

O truth, in olden fiction told!
O England, heed the lesson well;
A precious truth this tale of old,
To ears that heed it, still should tell

124

Unto thy trust a gift, how rare!
By gracious Providence is given;
O, of that priceless gift take care,
Freedom, that priceless gift of heaven!
O, land of freemen, treasure up,
Freedom, God's gift, thy magic cup!

Since thou hast had it, time can tell
How every blessing has been yours;
Still dost thou prize thy treasure well;
See how thy greatness still endures!
Matchless the race that in thee dwells;
Thy sails are white on every sea;
To wondering nations, Glory tells
Of all possessed and done by thee.
O, land of freemen, treasure up
God's priceless gift, thy magic cup!

Hark! through the troubled earth, resounds
The strife for rights thy sons have here;
Whilst peace abides within thy bounds,
And wisdom rules thee, free from fear.
Envious, thy state the nations see,
By tyrants gagged, by priests oppressed;
O race, so great because so free,
How blessed are you with freedom blessed!
O, race of freemen, treasure up
God's priceless gift, your magic cup!

Ah, prize it well! O my own land,
Let not the mocking nations see
This blessing, given to thy hand,
E'er held less dear than now by thee!

125

Still let this highest gift of God,
Thee, land, above the nations lift,
So shall thy future path be trod,
Secure from ill, through this God's gift.
O, land of freemen, treasure up
God's priceless gift, thy magic cup!

So in its weird strength shalt thou stand,
Rock-like amid the waves of ill;
Thy conquering march through time, how grand!
Thy future ever grander still;
But O, remember, in that hour
Thy hold is from thy treasure forced,
To weakness turns thy vaunted power;
With freedom's loss shall all be lost.
O, race of freemen, treasure up
God's priceless gift, your magic cup!

OUR GLORY ROLL.

O my land, thou land of heroes! through my thoughts what glories pour,
As thy mighty past to memory tells thy roll of glory o'er,
As it numbers up in trumpet-tones thy hosts of mighty names,
All the deathless deeds with which thy brood have matched the ancient fames!
Saints and heroes! mighty mother, well exultant may'st thou be,
As thou think'st of all the great ones all thy years have borne to thee!
Saints and heroes! each a glory, still creative, still to last,
Still to throng thy mightier future with the grandeurs of thy past,
Still to haunt thy countless children with the ghosts of wonders done,
Till with deeds that match their fathers', each shall prove himself their son.

126

Saints and heroes! who may name all who have toiled and thought and bled
For thy sake, since, from thy fierce ones, Rome and Cæsar almost fled,
Since, but dim-seen through thy long-past, with thine Arthur, knight on knight,
All the might of thy Round Table streamed on through Badon's fight,
Since from his freed Saxon England, mightiest in his mightiest reign,
Thy great Alfred's dragons swept the sea, and hurled to hell the Dane,
Since thy Harold to Hardrada gave seven feet of English shore,
Since his Saxon blood made Hastings' hills holy for evermore.

Thine were they, the great of heart of old, who dared draw freemen's breath,
Though it could be only drawn by them within the grasp of death;
So lived he, thy Saxon Hereward, in life, in death, still free.
So lived they, green Sherwood's outlaws bold, so dear to song and thee.
So thy mighty will, “live free! die free!” thy Wallace dared to learn,
And thy Bruce and Douglas rung it down to us from Bannockburn.
Praise to them, our Norman fathers, whose mailed gauntlets rent away
From the despot's grasp at Runnymede the rights we hold to-day,
To De Montfort, thy “Great Baron!” he whose strong arm planted deep
First our rightful power to rule ourselves, the power that still we keep.
Nor, if they blindly strove for wrong, name we with aught but pride
Strong à Becket and proud Wolsey, who for thy sake strove and died;
Nor forget we those, thy glory in the old and stormy years,
Those of Ascalon and Agincourt, of Crecy and Poitiers,
From thy lion-hearted Richard to thy Edwards, peerless two,
Who, with Manny and with Chandos, showed what thine could dare and do,
From thy Talbot, France's terror, and thy Hal, who smote her down,
To each bowman and each billman good, who struck for thy renown.
Cold is his heart who even to-day without a throb can be
For these, his fearless fathers, still the boast of fame and thee.

Yet saintlier laurels have been won by these, thy mighty brood,
And holier glories than are reaped in fiercest fields of blood.

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Thy martyrs, who shall count them, who, for God and conscience sake,
Have, dauntless, faced the screw and rack, and smiled upon the stake,
Through the dungeon and the torture, on to death and heaven have trod,
Caught, like the prophet rapt of old in fire right up to God!
Thine is the still sweet savour of thy Latimer's blessed name,
Thine thy Hooper's saintly glory and thy white-haired Ridley's fame.
For God and holiest truth and thee, thou saw'st thy Cranmer stand
Calm 'mid the flames, while in the fire blackened his thrust-out hand.
And thine were all of whom to tell the tongue of History tires,
The souls, to live on high, who died on earth in Smithfield's fires.
Their pains are past; their trials here, their bliss hath all forgot,
Yet fettered be the faith they freed, when we tell of them not!

Oh days, o'erfilled with thought and deed! O days of high emprize,
That, from our Lion-Queen's great reign, flash on our dazzled eyes,
Who can, in tones that fitly tell their greatness, utter o'er
The names that were earth's wonders then, and shall be evermore!
One then, O mother-land, was thine, still peerless and alone,
Thy Shakespeare, greatest gift that God has given His earth to own,
Whose equal Time shall never see, as it has never seen,
Sun in the heavens of glory, sole to be, as he has been;
And thine, old land, were then the stars his light alone could dim,
Thy Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, all who only pale by him;
Thy Bacon, lord of thought, who saw, with all-beholding eyes,
The ways where wisdom always dwells, and bared them to the wise,
Thy Burleigh and thy Walsingham, thy Sidney and De Vere,
Who gave thee might and conquest then, to all thy foes a fear.
Then didst thou send thy sea-hearts forth, dreadless, afar to gain
Knowledge and spoils and lands for thee, despite of hell and Spain.
For thee, thy Drake dared gird the earth, God and his heart his guide,
For thee thy Raleigh wrote and bled, thy Grenville dauntless died.
Thy Hawkins and thy Frobisher and Cavendish, for thee
Brought wounds and gold and galleons back from every unknown sea.

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For thee, no fear of pike or shot, or storm or odds, they knew,
Winning from death Panama's bars, the ingots of Peru.
For thee thy countless ocean-kings hung on the Great Fleet's track,
Till the Invincible, aghast, fled, foiled and shattered, back;
Till these, thy Vikings, with red hands, gave, for all time, to thee
Unfettered faith and thy proud right to rule on every sea.
O mighty Tudor times! O souls and deeds of greatness! well,
Old land, may'st thou still, with proud eyes, of these unto us tell.

Nor need'st thou lower for after deeds, O land, thy mighty voice,
Nor bid us less, in later fames, to evermore rejoice,
To reverence those to whose free tongues and hearts and hands we know,
Our priceless power to live this hour self-ruled and free, we owe.
Who knows them not? who needs this hour their great names to be told
Who from the paltering Stuarts wrung the rights to-day we hold?
No blood of thine is that, old land, which does not kindle high
At thought of those who, for thy sake and freedom's, smiled to die,
Who, by slit nose and grubbed-out ears and branded cheeks, unawed,
Unblenching fronted Strafford's frown, and dared the hate of Laud.
Yes, Star Chambers might torture, and their High Commissions kill,
The Tyrant fine and pillory, these stood for thy great rights still,
Stood for them in the evil days when Buckingham had power,
When renegades, like Wentworth and like base Hyde, had their hour,
When cringing things that scoffed at laws, of Eliot's death made sport,
And strove to doom us, like themselves, the gagged slaves of a Court,
When Popish prelates, fell as Rome's, the people's laws trod down,
And basely would have bound us serfs to priests and to the Crown,
Then, England, in thy darkest hour, when men's hearts well might fear,
When thy black night grew but more black, nor hope of day seemed near,
Then how they rose, rose up, all thine, through evil as through good,
Then, for thy great free life and ours, thy Pym and Hampden stood,
Then their strong cry for thy old laws through all the hushed land rang,
And armed and stern, thy roused-up sons to guard their birthright sprang,

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And when the Tyrant loosed at last his hell-hounds on their prey,
And through thy ways his cry went forth to plunder, bind, and slay,
Then with lit eye, thou well might'st see how gathered to thy side
Thy stern ones who on Marston Moor broke fiery Rupert's pride,
Whom Naseby's day and Worcester's fray, thy conquering soldiers saw,
Who fought thy fight at red Dunbar, Wexford, and Philiphaugh,
Thy Roundhead ranks, thy Ironsides, who down the scoffers trod
On many a field of blood for thee, for law and right and God.
Then towered aloft thy Cromwell, thine, who knew thy word alone,
Thine and his God's, and in that strength brake down the Tyrant's throne.
Then through the battle-smoke of days, thy Blake thou smil'd'st to see
Shatter the vaunting Dutchman's pride and give renown to thee.
No nobler hearts, no dearer names than these, old land, hast thou;
Dear were they to thee while they breathed; dear are they to us now.
When dear they are not, then thy end, old land, shall not be far;
Thy glory too shall die with theirs who made us what we are.

Nor in thy lowest depths of shame, thy sores of mischance,
When thy lewd basest Stuart sold, for gold, thy power to France,
When mistresses misruled thy state and bastards were thy peers,
When thou wert fallen to be the spoil of corsairs of Algiers,
When bloody Claverhouse dragooned thy servants of the Lord,
And preached the faith of Laud again with thumbscrew, boot, and sword,
When from thy once unfearing homes, the heart seemed to have fled,
And banned and gagged, reviled and scorned, even hope in thee seemed dead,
Even then, in that dark evil hour, in that thrice-cursèd reign,
For testifiers for thy right thou didst not ask in vain;
From stern and plain God-fearing men, who feared none else, came forth
A cry unto the heavens for thee, from out the blood-soaked North;
And in thy London, freedom's home, beneath thy Tyrant's eye,
Rose some to dare the strife for thee, for thee content to die.
When thou dost count thy martyrs o'er, thou dost remember well
How Russell on the scaffold bled, how murdered Sidney fell;

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But their blood sank not in the earth; its cry was never damb.
Until thy day of vengeance full, till freedom's hour was come.
Thy time of torture and disgrace yet longer might endure,
Thy Romish Stuart, worst and last, might drench with blood Sedgemoor;
Might gloat while drunken Jeffreys joyed to do his bloody work,
Might give thy daughters to the will of the foul Lambs of Kirke,
Their curses and our endless hate, by hell's own deeds might earn,
As merciless to all as when his foot could Monmouth spurn:
But still the cry of righteous blood unto the heavens went up;
God, in His time, to the accurst dealt out their own red cup,
Gave them to taste, when thou didst arm and William's Dutchmen came,
Their victims' portion, hate and scorn and exile, want and shame,
Gave the dark evil soul of James in his grey age to feel
Such bitterness as his own hand had dealt to Alice Lisle;
Gave him and his sons' sons to know what they he'd exiled felt,
Their tools to kneel on scaffolds where his victims once had knelt,
Till the Boyne and red Culloden all their savage clans clove down
And made us freemen, nevermore to dread a Stuart's frown,
No more, for all our fathers won, to battle, or to be,
Save what we are, thanks unto them! those who can but be free.

And since the evil Stuart days in mercy God bade cease,
Since under kings that rule by law and love, we've dwelt in peace,
What souls have been thine own, to tell of whom thy tongue delights!
What glories have been thine, what deeds, what ever-broadening rights!
What might and thought and wealth and rule, that still know greater growth!
What triumphs still in war and peace! thou, still the first in both;
What statesmen, mightier than Greece knew, thou here hast heard at home,
What orators thine ears have stilled that shamed the tongues of Rome,
Since Somers, pure as wise, for thee in stormiest councils fought,
Since lower-souled, but all thine own, thy Walpole for thee wrought,
Since Chatham's rushing thunders at his foes and thine were hurled,
And, with the bolts of his fierce words, he smote to awe the world,

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Since, for thy rule, his mighty will launched Wolfe afar, to wrest
From France's hold, on Abraham's heights, her empire of the West,
Since, eagle-eyed, with fierce delight, he saw thy sway increased,
Where thy young Clive at Plassey grasped for thee the trembling East;
Thine was the brain that Hastings owned, for widest empire fit,
Thine Pitt's clear thought, and Fox's fire and Sheridan's bright wit,
Thine Grattan's grasp and Curran's strength and Burke, to whom 'twas known
To soar to heights, unscaled by thought, save in his words alone;
Thine, too was Canning's airy grace, and thine the living fire
That scorched and seared from Brougham's lips the foes who dared his ire;
Of later names, why need I tell, of whom renown is loud,
Of living fames that on my thought in world-known greatness crowd!
To-day thy Cobden's love for all, strikes the world's barred ways free,
Thy Bright is thundering for the rights of all who spring from thee;
Not from thy mighty blood, old land, thy ancient power has died,
While, great as all thy greatest gone, thy Gladstone is thy pride;
Nor shall thy glory pale to-day, thy old renown grow dim,
While Chatham's fire and Fox's force and Burke's thought live in him.
Exult, old land, be proud of heart that thou hast these to praise
Who mate thy living glories now with those of ancient days,
Who highest thought and noblest speech from wisdom's lips have caught
Amid the thunders of debate and the fierce clash of thought,
Who with great laws still bless thy sons and make our hours sublime,
And thee amid the nations still the awe and boast of time.

Thine have been war's red triumphs, thine, unnumbered sons whose breath
Was spent to reap renown for thee in fiercest fields of death;
What conquests and what boasts were thine o'er vaunting Louis, when
Thy Churchill proved how well he'd been the pupil of Turenne,
When Marlborough's hand from the Great King rent rule and power away
At Ramilies and Blenheim, Oudenarde and Malplaquet;
Still, with quick breath and flushing blood, the conquering tale is read
Of how before him Tallard fell and boastful Villars fled,

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How, Wellington of that old time, on many a field of fight,
Before him France's strength went down, her Marshals spurred in flight;
And only unto him, to him, and one yet greater, yield
Thy nearer sons who hurled thy ranks through many a famous field,
From when thy dying Wolfe exulting heard, “The French—they run!”
From when thy boyish Clive won states beneath the Indian sun,
From when Gibraltar fire-girt saw thy Elliott bide the shock
Of empires armed, and fling them back foiled from its unwon rock,
From when upon Corunna's heights thy sons turned in their track,
And with worn ranks, beneath dead Moore, struck their pursuers back,
From when thy Abercrombie's hand at Alexandria tore
From the fierce eagle's clutch the prey the Mameluke dropped before,
Till when, across green Maida's plain, thy bayonets Stuart flung
In answer stern to the vain boasts of Regnier's taunting tongue,
Till when thy Marlborough's greater peer, thy Wellesley, first, away
In the far East, gave to thy flags Argaum and fierce Assaye;
Till Junot, Marmont, Victor, and Massena he o'erthrew
In fields almost as stern as thine, O world-known Waterloo!
O old Valkyriur, work ye had, ye choosers of the slain,
In all his hundred conquering strifes that freed the fields of Spain;
Busaco, Talavera, Salamanca, well each name
Thou know'st, old land; well know'st thou, too, Vittoria's greater fame;
Oft hast thou told of Graham and Barossa; oft hast told
How, from red Albuera's ridge, thy ranks, the Frenchmen, rolled,
Through what a fiery breach at last strong Badajos was won,
How grimly St. Sebastian fell, thy prey, to Wellington,
And how he gave our conquering flags at last out to the breeze,
And bade them gaze on France, their spoil, from off the Pyrenees.
In vain against him there did Soult lead on his gleaming lines;
Through pass and cloud, he hurled them down from Ivantelly's pines,
Till hunted back they turned, and he the strife did not refuse,
And smote them yet again and shamed their eagles at Toulouse;
But yet by this, thy mightiest son, a mightier foe was seen
When the great Conqueror vainly strove to win thy ridge, St. Jean;

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A sterner strife, a nobler hour, old land, you never knew
Than when you smote Napoleon down, destroyed at Waterloo.

Yet, O ye years that we have seen, ye too our blood could stir
With deeds that show that we, this hour, are all our fathers were;
No nobler hearts, through Fontenoy or lost Almanza, kept
Their even tread and steady pulse, while down their ranks were swept,
Than those that at Mooltan's far walls with Edwardes did not fail,
Than those that, in Jellalabad, upbore thy flag with Sale,
Than Nott and Pollock, they whose arms retrieved thy shame and rule,
And planted once again, in might, thy standards on Cabul;
Dear as Cornwallis's to thee, as Peterborough's, dear,
His fame who crushed at Hydrabad its many a fierce Ameer,
Who, counting not the swarming swords whose strokes his weak ranks thinned,
Unpausing, closed at Meeanee with the wild hosts of Scinde,
He, thy Napier, he of that brood whom glory holds above
All others in our own great days, for ever, in its love;
Nor when the fiery hosts of Sikhs the Sutlej dared swarm o'er
To know thy might at Aliwal, Moodkee, and Ferozepore,
Didst thou in vain for strong ones ask in that thrice-dangerous hour
To smite them back, and guard unscathed thy glory and thy power;
Thy Hardinge, Gough and Harry Smith, thy Littler, well they kept
Thy name unshamed, while, victors, through Sobraon's guns they swept;
And when against thee yet again in might the smitten rose,
At bloody Chillianwallah and Ramnugger crushed thy foes,
Rolled conquering on through steel and fire, through Gujerat's red roar,
And gave new nations to thy rule and throned thee in Lahore.

And, later still, new triumphs flash fresh glories on our eyes
And, nearer yet, old land, our day gives thee new fames to prize;
How ever yet thy mighty blood with fiery gladness thrills
As thou rememberest how thy ranks charged up the Alma's hills,

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How, all unsuccoured, with the Turk, thy boldest gathered scars
With Williams, while the Russian hordes rolled from the mounds of Kars,
How thou did'st weep proud tears for those who in the deathless ride
Of Balaclava, at thy word, without a murmur, died,
How never yet a fiercer thrill of joy through thy veins ran
Than when thou heard'st thy soldier's deeds at gory Inkermann;
Long, through all future coming years, shalt thou delight thy soul
With thoughts of these, thy sons, who won for thee Sebastopol.

But brighter yet shall blaze thine eye and deeper flush thy cheek,
When thou unto thy children shalt of later glories speak,
When thou shalt, wrung with rage and grief and wondering joy tell o'er
Thy wrath and tears and vengeance for the slaughtered of Cawnpore,
Tell how, when, sudden, fierce and fell thy trusted Sepoys rose,
Thy sons, unknowing fear or doubt, unquailing faced their foes,
But knew that they were thine, thy heart and their own hearts but knew,
And, in that dreadest of thine hours, still unto both were true;
Long unto distant marvelling years shall the proud tale be sung,
How Wilson, Hodson, and thy few to Delhi's hill-tops clung,
Clung, victors over foes, disease and death, with lips all dumb
To murmurs, till their hour of strength and vengeance full, should come,
Till thy own Lawrence, whose strong arm upheld thee there, at last
Thy Nicholson's fierce strength of Sikhs into their weak ranks cast,
And in their might they straight went down and cleansed away thy shame,
And smote and trod on Delhi's hate and gave its homes to flame;
Then, when thou think'st of all who stood by thee that hoar, with those
Who were thy noblest, thou dost tell of Outram, Peel, and Rose,
Of Kavanagh, of Arrah's few, by thousands girt about,
Who paled not, and of grey-haired Clyde who trod the fierce strife out.

But quicker yet, with eager love, at one name thou wilt start
While there shall beat a single throb, old land, within thy heart,
While thou hast one faint gleam of life or memory, to thee,
Greatness and pride, above all pride, thy Havelock shall be;

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Yes, in the weakness of thine age, thy memory must be dim
Ere thou shalt cease, with love how dear, with awe to tell of him,
Tell how, defying foes, disease, and the fierce blasting sun,
He thundered on, through armies crushed, each day a battle won,
Swept, conquering, on, resistless, on, through all that barred his way,
To where the hosts of howling fiends in Lucknow girt their prey,
Then, through the storm of fire, at last fought on to Inglis' side,
And, when thy children all were saved, blessed God and thee, and died.

But nobler crowns than those that earth has wreathed around thy brow,
From every sea that knows thy sails and owns thy rule, hast thou;
What oceans have not given thee fame, lent to thy heroes, graves,
Thy mighty, caught to them whilst thou didst thunder-calm their waves,
Thy sea-kings who from age to age have shown the heart of Drake,
Have matched the deeds of Frobisher, and lived the days of Blake;
Through all the centuries, through our veins has leapt the salt sea-spray;
They who joy not to front the storm, no sons of thine are they;
Thou, throned upon the subject isles, what triumphs, land, to thee,
What spoils and rules, thy brave have borne from every wind-swept sea!
How have they joyed as through the thundering lines they cleft their way
As gun to gun, for fiery hours, amid the foe they lay,
As their fierce broadsides, crash on crash, through side and porthole roared,
And shroud and sail and splintering mast went over by the board!
Thunder, thou sea, the mighty fames that made our glory sure,
How Edward smote crushed France at Sluys, and Bedford at Harfleur;
Fitly, how Spain's Armada came and was not, must be sung,
O Earth, to thee in ocean-bursts by tempests to thee flung.
O savage tongues of storms and seas, wild voices of the deep,
Chant ye the world-known deeds of Blake, ye sang to death's own sleep,
Repeat, with savage love, the days, with you, that Russell knew,
The deeds that Rooke and Shovel dared in ocean's sight to do,
How Anson streamed our conquering flag in triumph round the world,
How Vernon its consuming fire to Darien's winds unfurled,

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How through the shoals of Quiberon, through its white breakers' roar,
In storm and fire, our fearless Hawke, brave Conflans, clutched and tore;
Nor yet forget how, one to ten, bold Benbow struck Du Casse.
Nor how keen Rodney and stout Hood in thunder crushed De Grasse,
How, on that day that brightens still June with its far renown,
Our Howe from many a crashing mast the Tricolor tore down.
Still in your dash, O windswept waves, these glories England hears,
Still swells to catch St. Vincent's roar and Camperdown's fierce cheers,
Still hearkens, with lit eyes, to all told by the billows' roar
Of Exmouth, Cochrane, and Napier, and fames unnumbered more.

But one great name, O mighty land, dearer than all to thee,
With countless memories to thine ear is thundered by the sea;
No other, with an equal love, can bid thee throb the while
Thou tak'st his to thy mother-heart with all exultant smile;
Unto thy lips, O sceptered land, what other glories are
As dear as his whose broadsides stilled the Nile and Trafalgar,
Who, from a hundred battle-days, for thee, red conquest, tore,
And gave to thee thy ocean-rule and glory evermore?

These were thy thunderbolts of war that clothed thee in their might,
Robed thee with power and rule that earth might tremble in thy sight,
But when thy days of conquering fields, in goodness, God bade cease,
What great ones have exalted thee with conquests won from peace!
Through God's vast night His countless worlds, as at creation, sang,
Darkness to man, as on that morn when from His hand they sprang;
Who should His mysteries dare to read? what thought might dare, through space,
Endless, to tread the deep profound, with Him His ways to trace,
Back from the depths of night to bear the words that should unfold
The laws by which the suns are ruled, by which the worlds are rolled!
Not from swart Egypt's priestly lips, not in the Hebrew flame
Of prophet fire, not from keen Greek, to man that wisdom came;

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Thee, land, He chose out from all lands, His mysteries forth to show,
Thy tongue, to bid the sons of men His wondrousness to know,
Through thee, He spake the words of power that lit the ends of night
Through Newton's lips, His wisdom came and evermore was light.

Lowlier than he, and yet how high are other names that earth
Repeats and, telling o'er, recounts thy glory in their birth,
Those who, with Davy, nature's laws have bared to human thought,
Those who, with Dalton, Owen, Smith, her mysteries have taught,
With Harvey, Hunter, Jenner, Bell, have grasped the laws of life,
Armed man that, battling with disease, he conquers in the strife,
With Wheatstone, seized the power that earth, with mortal utterance, girds
And made all space that sundered man, at once repeat his words;
Rich art thou in the wise who feed the souls of men, no less
Thy wondrous minds have thought and toiled, men's lowlier needs, to bless;
By Arkwright's breath, the whirling wheels that clothe mankind are driven,
At Wedgwood's word, thy potters' gifts load every wind of heaven;
To man, the gift of sumless power, thy Watt and Boulton gave,
Made the unmeasured might of steam henceforth our toiling slave;
Lo, at thy word, from Stephenson, the magic dragons came
And flashed man round the wondering earth, wrapped in their breath of flame.

Who were thy sons whose mighty souls adored their God in stone?
With Him to whom they piled their prayers, their memory lives alone.
Their frozen music chants His praise for ever in our sight
From carven shaft and still white aisle where dim day dies to night;
Their worship lives, thy glory still, though Wykeham's sainted name
Alone has wandered down through time to clothe thee in its fame;
Yes, nameless they whose holy roofs make Westminster divine,
Who bow our souls in Salisbury's gloom, yet lives their glory thine.
O stony dream Ictinus wrought up the blue Attic air,
Still, still thy white perfection makes the thoughts of centuries fair,
Still is his Florence glorified by Brunelleschi's dome,
Still Michael Angelo's dread thought soars vast o'er prostrate Rome;

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And hast thou one thy lips dare name when men's lips marvelling speak
His fame from whose soul's depths arose that glory of the Greek?
What fame hast thou to mate with his? what son, O land, is thine
Who may be breathed, uncrushed, with him, the mighty Florentine?
One; when all nations utter these, O mother-land, even then
Thou, thou can'st dare to breathe with theirs the glory of thy Wren;
Thy swelling heart, even with their fames, his vast renown recalls,
And Pallas' fane, St. Peter's pile but mate with thy St. Paul's.

If less the greatness of thy brood, in kindred arts, is shown,
Yet canst thou call the holiest fame in music, half thine own.
Milton of sound, when Handel's soul to God in thunders soared,
Upon the wings of thy great speech, upmounting, he adored.

If not, from canvasses of thine, faith's visions awe or melt,
Nor to God-babe or Maid Divine, before them, souls have knelt,
The sin and sorrow of the earth, how well thy Hogarth gives!
From Reynolds' hands, for ever fair, how mortal beauty lives!
With matchless truth, thy Wilkie rules our hearts to grief or mirth;
Thy Gainsborough and thy Turner glorify air, sea and earth;
Thy Flaxman bids our eyes to see what Homer's darkness saw,
And gods live from thy Gibson's touch, our wonder and our awe.

How many a greatness, all thine own, not yet has crossed my tongue
That might by Glory's own bright lips and thine be fitlier sung,
The sunrise of thy deathless verse that made its morning bright,
Thy Chaucer, whose clear radiance first brake sweetly up the night,
Thy Massinger, Green, Decker, Peele, and Marlowe, all who lit,
With Fletcher, honey-tongued, and Ford, the Mermaid bright with wit;
Thy Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, Marvel, and their crew,
Thy nightingales, whose sweetness well their mightier fellows knew;
And he, thy Dante, who on earth lived for and still with God,
Milton, who here the fields of heaven and hell's red darkness trod;
To whom, with the dread Florentine, 'twas given in life alone
Alike to see the torturing flames and gaze upon The Throne.

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These flash down on us, shining ones that lustrous make thy past,
Nor others dost thou seek in vain, whose light as long shall last;
See, Christian, through the flood, to the Celestial Gate has striven,
That “tale divine,” to our rapt ears, was by thy Bunyan given;
Those laughs of ringing centuries tell of humour strangely true,
'Tis his, thy Butler's, who, for us, the canting crop-ears drew;
Ah! Crusoe's lonely island-life of years, how well we know!
That fiction's moving truth of truth, won life from thy Defoe;
Thine, too, were Goldsmith's tender thought, and humour dear and whim;
Thine, he who gentlest Toby drew, and the kind heart of Trim;
Thine, Richardson and Smollett, Steele and Fielding, fellows fit;
Thine, Vanbrugh's, Farquhar's dazzling scenes, and Congreve's diamond wit;
Thine were the hand and the fine brain whose quaint and gentle powers,
How tenderly and rarely well, made his “Sir Roger” ours;
Thine, Dryden's strong resounding line, and Pope's point, bright and keen;
Thine, Swift's fierce heart, that madness made so savage, sore, and mean;
Thine, Young's drear thoughts, and Thomson's verse that rhymes the year away,
And Ramsay's bonnie lassies' chat, and the dear lines of Gay;
Still, through thy memory murmur on the tones thy smooth Gray sung;
Thy greater Collins, still his “Odes” swell grandly on thy tongue;
Thy Cowper's quiet feeling yet our grateful reverence earns;
Still, on our tongues and in our blood, dance on the songs of Burns;
Nor later songs and nearer names by thee shall be forgot,
Thy great in verse, and mightier far in prose, thy wizard, Scott.
When to thy Byron's fiery joy of song, wilt thou be cold?
With blood unstirred, when wilt thou hear thy Campbell's thunder rolled?
Fair are the dreams unto thine eyes thy Keats for ever brings;
Sweet are the streams of thoughts divine thy Shelley to thee sings.
Still thy rough Crabbe, thy softer Moore now wake thy sighs or mirth;
Thy Coleridge still delights thy soul with music not of earth;
The fiery pulse of thy far youth, does thy great heart desire;
Thy Lockhart, thy Macaulay thrill thy blood, old land, to fire;

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Christ's tender love for all, thy Hood unto thy heart has taught;
To nature's worship, nature's calm, thy Wordsworth stills thy thought;
The wonder of men's living hearts, thy rugged Browning lays
Bare to thy sight, till, bees in glass, they work beneath thy gaze;
One other name thou too hast now, that fitly may be told
When nations ask thee for a fame to mate thy great of old:
Fellow unto thy greatest gone, old land, hast thou not one,
Glory and joy to thee and thine, thy laurelled Tennyson?

These built on high thy greatness, land; shall not that greatness last?
Shall not thy future teem with souls as matchless as thy past?
Yes, in thy wondrous years to be, a greatness shall be seen
That dwarfs the triumphs of thy past, thy grandeurs that have been.
Up to hero-height, thy future, all the powers of all, shall school;
All thy souls shall then be lifted to the greatness of self-rule;
Then all lives shall live the grandeur of the powers their God has willed,
And the days of all, with blessedness of wisdom, shall be filled;
Not the few alone, existence, as a treasure, then shall prize;
All shall grasp the comfort of the rich, the knowledge of the wise.
Thy present, in exulting thought, to Pisgah heights can win
And view the sumless bliss to which thy future enters in;
Then, not only to the high and few, the crown and palm shall fall,
Then glory and acclaim shall be the heritage of all;
What harvests of all greatness then within thine isles shall rise!
Shall the young years not be richer than the old beneath thine eyes?
But not only from thy home-earth, then for thee such harvests are;
Thou hast girt the world with peoples; thou hast flung thy seed afar;
O, thou mother-land of nations, from thy mighty womb have sprung
States, the rulers of the times to be, to rule them in thy tongue;
Not from these, thy ancient isles, for thee shall spring thy great alone,
But from rules and far dominions that thy mighty hands have sown,
Isles and continents thy conquering sons have swarmed forth and possest,
Planting chainless faith and freedom in the South and mighty West;

141

These shall glory to thy great ones to add kindred glories, these
Shall breed heroes thou shalt warm to by the far Australian seas;
Lo, they gather, these thy nations, from the broad Atlantic's roar,
From the Mexic bay, Vancouver's seas, to the white Arctic shore;
Young giants, how they laugh aloud to feel their infant strength!
What shall be their awful greatness when their manhood comes, at length,
When the trembling rules of Europe shall grow weakness at their word,
And the will that none shall question, from their dread lips shall be heard!
Then their Shakespeares, then their Bacons, then their Miltons that shall be,
They that sun the earth with glory, they shall glories be to thee;
As the New World's hosts of nations, these shall glorify and guide,
Looking seaward, O my England, how thy heart shall leap with pride!
Not thy past is starred with grandeurs as the centuries that arise;
Look not back, O mighty mother, forward flash thy hungering eyes;
Shout aloud for thy great greatness! are the dawning centuries dumb
Of thy tongue the world's one language, and thy rule supreme to come,
When countless as the sea-sands, as the heaven's bright suns, shall be
The wise and pure and mighty who shall give renown to thee.

O MY LAND, MOTHERLAND.

O my land, motherland,
How our hearts within us yearn
To you!
How our hearts within us burn
Your mighty love to earn,
And some deed, with head or hand,
That shall make you yet more grand,
O my land,
In our turn,
To do!

142

O my land, mighty land,
How your past's great thousand years,
For you,
Have won, 'mid toils and tears,
From dangers, joys and fears,
A rule to your great hand
That the deeds must make more grand,
O my land,
That our years
Must do.

O my land, glorious land,
Who, to glory, is as dear
As you!
Not for us is it to hear
That your present has a peer;
'Tis for us to make you stand
High in glory, sole and grand,
O my land,
Your work here,
To do.

O my land, chainless land,
Freedom laughs her strength to see
In you;
To the nations, chained and free,
She gives you, their hope, to be;
Stronger, in her strength, to stand,
Be it yours! that work, your hand,
O my land,
For the free
May do.

143

O my land, my own land,
O let right still be strong
In you!
To you God bids belong
Might supreme, that the wrong
That would trample earth, your hand
For the weak may still withstand;
O my land,
Right, thou'rt strong
To do.

O my land, my own land,
Do the nations, scorning say,
From you,
Rule and might even to-day
From your grasp shall pass away!
Fools! to you shall God's right hand
Still give lordship and command;
Who, my land,
Your decay
Shall view!

O my land, peerless land,
Time, to you, nor shame nor scorn
Shall do.
Still to you are great souls born
From whom life must first be torn
Ere a foe wrench from your hand
Right or sway that makes you grand;
Sweet, my land,
Were death, borne
For you.

144

O my land, my own land,
Earth is great with nations sown
By you;
Earth is girt by you alone
With free rules that proudly own
You their mother, that would stand,
Were there strife, at your right hand,
Your will, land,
That alone,
To do.

O my land, mightiest land,
As it has been, it shall be
With you;
Still all coming time shall see
Your great brood but wax more free;
Yet, still mightier, shall you stand
Through the future, yet more grand,
To God, land,
If you be
Still true.

University of Virginia Library

THE FALL OF HARALD HARDRADA.

1066.

THE HUNT OF THE SAXON SWINE.

1068.

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

1087.

“DEUS LO VULT!”—GOD WILLS IT!”

THE CRY OF THE CRUSADES. 1095.

THE WATCH OF THE CRUSADES.

1099.

QUEEN ELEANOR'S VENGEANCE.

1180.

IN WARWICK CASTLE.

1460.

BEFORE BOSWORTH FIELD.

1484.

THE MARTYRDOM OF RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

1555.

RUPERT IS OUT!

1642.

THE MARCH TO BRENTFORD OF THE LONDON TRAINED-BANDS.

1642.

MARSTON MOOR.

1644.

CORPORAL JOHN,

HIS SOLDIERS' OWN NAME FOR THE Duke of Marlborough. 1711.

UFTON COURT.

THE FALSE ALARM.

1805.

THE DEEDS OF WELLINGTON.

1852.

THE DEATH-MARCH OF WELLINGTON.

1852.

COSSACK WE WILL NEVER BE.

1853

HARK! THE WOLVES ARE ON THE TRACK.

1853.

BALACLAVA.

October 25th, 1854.

INKERMANN.

November 5th, 1854.

THE TRICOLOR.

A CRY FOR EUROPEAN FREEDOM. 1855.

OUR GUARDS.

GOD BLESS THE DEAR OLD LAND.

A SONG FOR AUSTRALIA. 1865.

THE RAISING OF THE FLAG AT FORT SUMTER,

April 12, 1865.

THE LUCK OF EDEN HALL.

A PRAYER TO THE PEOPLE.

OUR GLORY ROLL.

O MY LAND, MOTHERLAND.