The visions of England Lyrics on leading men and events in English history by Francis T. Palgrave |
AFTER CAWNPORE
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The visions of England | ||
AFTER CAWNPORE
June: 1857
At bay within the door
Of that old idol-shrine:
And at them, as they stand,
And from that English band,
The leaden shower went out, and Death proclaim'd them Mine!
Fourteen against an army; they, no more,
Had 'scaped Cawnpore.
The bullets ping and plash:
Yet, though the tropic noon
With furnace-fury broke
The sulphur-curling smoke,
Thirst-silenced, hunger-faint, scarr'd, sear'd, they stood: And soon
A dusky wall, —death sheltering life,—uprose
Against their foes.
The horror of the past;
The fort that was no fort,
The deep dark-heaving flood
Of foes that broke in blood
On our devoted camp, poor toys of fiendish sport;
From that last huddling refuge lured to fly,
—And help so nigh!
That fated remnant pour,
Mad Fear and Death beside;
And other spectres yet
Of darker vision flit,—
Old unforgotten wrongs, the harshness and the pride
Of that imperial race which sway'd the land
By sheer command!
A mother's hand in vain
With terror vague and vast:—
Parch'd eyes that cannot shed
One tear upon the head,
A young child's head, too bright for such fell death to blast!
Ah! sadder captive train ne'er filed to doom
Through vengeful Rome!
The death-boats they unmoor,
Stack'd high with hopeless hearts;
A slowly-drifting freight
Through the red jaws of Fate,
Death-blazing banks between, and flame-wing'd arrow-darts:—
Till down the holy stream those cargoes pour
Their flame and gore.
The slaughter-barges go,
Martyrs of heathen scorn:
While, saved from flood and fire
To glut the tyrant's ire,
The quick and dead in one, from their red shambles borne,
Maiden and child, in that dark grave they throw,
Our well of woe!
Through Time's all-softening haze,
In peace, on them at peace
And taken home to God!
—O whether 'neath the sod,
Or sea, or desert sand, what care,—if that release
From this dim shadow-land, through pathways dim,
Bear us to Him!
At bay, rock-steadfast, smile
On their grim baffled foe;
Till o'er the wall he heaps
The fuel-pile, and steeps
With all that burns and blasts;—and now, perforce, they go
Hack'd down and thinn'd, beyond that temple-door
But Seven,—no more.
With this poor human life,
Stern laws of Nature fair!
By flame constrain'd to fly
The treacherous stream they try,—
And those dark Ganges waves suck down the souls they bear!—
Ah, crowning anguish! Dawn of hope in sight;
Then, final night!
Life's flotsam flung ashore,
They lie:—But not as they
Who o'er a dreadful past
The heart's-ease sigh may cast!
Too worn! too tried!—their lives but given them as a prey!
Whilst all seems now a dream, a nought of nought,
For which they fought!
Blazon'd with shame and fame!
Land with the precious blood
Of hero-hearts deep dyed,—
While ever at their side
Fresh heroes spring,—a race that cannot be subdued!
—Like them who pass'd Death's gate, and lived;—the Four
Saved from Cawnpore!
The English garrison at Cawnpore, with a large number of sick, women, and children, were besieged in their hastily made and weak earthworks by Nana Sahib from June 6 to June 25, 1857. Compelled to surrender, under promise of safe convoy down the Ganges, on the 27th they were massacred by musketry from the banks; the thatch of the river-boats being also fired. The survivors were murdered and thrown into the well upon Havelock's approach on July 15.
One boat managed to escape unburnt on June 27. It was chased through the 28th and 29th, by which time the crowd on board was reduced to fourteen men, one of whom, Mowbray-Thomson, has left a narrative equally striking from its vividness and its modesty. Seven escaped from the small temple in which they defended themselves; four only finally survived to tell the story.
The visions of England | ||