When death, just hovering, claimed his prey,
With Palinure’s unaltered mood
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelled,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till in his fall with fateful sway,
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain’s thousand plains
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around
The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallowed day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,--
He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here!
Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy _requiescat_ dumb,
Lest it be said o’er FOX’S tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employed, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy’s glow,--
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mourn’st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be ever harsher thought suppressed,
And sacred be the long last rest.
_Here_, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke and sung;
_Here_, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke agen,
‘All peace on earth, good-will to men’;
If ever from an English heart,
O, _here_ let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record, that FOX a Briton died!
When Europe crouched to France’s yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian’s purpose brave
Was bartered by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour’s peace he spurned,
The sullied olive-branch returned,
Stood for his country’s glory fast,
And nailed her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honoured grave,
And ne’er held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.
With more than mortal powers endowed,
How high they soared above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled Gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of PITT and FOX alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E’er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.
These spells are spent, and, spent with these
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombed beneath the stone,
Where--taming thought to human pride!--
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon FOX’S grave the tear,
’Twill trickle to his rival’s bier;
O’er PITT’S the mournful requiem sound,
And FOX’S shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,--
‘Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom
Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen?’
_Sir Walter Scott._
DIBDIN
XLII
THE SNUG LITTLE ISLAND
Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,
‘If ever I live upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!’
Says Freedom, ‘Why that’s my own island!’
O, it’s a snug little island!
A right little, tight little island,
Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.
Julius Cæsar, the Roman, who yielded to no man,
Came by water,--he couldn’t come _by_ land;
And Dane, Pict, and Saxon, their homes turn’d their backs on,
And all for the sake of our island.
O, what a snug little island!
They’d all have a touch at the island!
Some were shot dead, some of them fled,
And some staid to live on the island.
Then a very great war-man, called Billy the Norman,
Cried ‘D--n it, I never liked my land;
It would be much more handy to leave this Nor_man_dy,
And live on yon beautiful island.’
Says he, ‘’Tis a snug little island:
Sha’n’t us go visit the island?’
Hop, skip, and jump, there he was plump,
And he kick’d up a dust in the island.
But party-deceit help’d the Normans to beat;
Of traitors they managed to buy land,
By Dane, Saxon, or Pict, Britons ne’er had been lick’d,
Had they stuck to the King of their island.
Poor Harold, the King of the island!
He lost both his life and his island.
That’s very true; what more could he do?
Like a Briton he died for his island!
The Spanish Armada set out to invade-a,
Quite sure, if they ever came nigh land,
They couldn’t do less than tuck up Queen Bess,
And take their full swing in the island.
O, the poor Queen of the island!
The Dons came to plunder the island;
But, snug in the hive, the Queen was alive,
And buz was the word in the island.
Those proud puff’d-up cakes thought to make ducks and drakes
Of our wealth; but they hardly could spy land,
When our Drake had the luck to make their pride duck
And stoop to the lads of the island.
Huzza for the lads of the island!
The good wooden walls of the island;
Devil or Don, let ’em come on;
But how would they come _off_ at the island?
Since Freedom and Neptune have hitherto kept tune,
In each saying, ‘This shall be my land’;
Should the ‘Army of England,’ or all they could bring, land,
We’d show ’em some play for the island.
We’ll fight for our right to the island;
We’ll give them enough of the island;
Invaders should just--bite at the dust,
But not a bit more of the island!
_Thomas Dibdin._
XLIII
THE MERRY SOLDIER
‘Who’ll serve the King?’ cried the sergeant aloud:
Roll went the drum, and the fife played sweetly;
‘Here, master sergeant,’ said I, from the crowd,
‘Is a lad who will answer your purpose completely.’
My father was a corporal, and well he knew his trade,
Of women, wine, and gunpowder, he never was afraid:
He’d march, fight--left, right,
Front flank--centre rank,
Storm the trenches--court the wenches,
Loved the rattle of a battle,
Died with glory--lives in story!
And, like him, I found a soldier’s life, if taken smooth and rough,
A very merry, hey down derry, sort of life enough.
‘Hold up your head,’ said the sergeant at drill:
Roll went the drum, and the fife played loudly;
‘Turn out your toes, sir!’ Says I, ‘Sir, I will,’
For a nimble-wristed round rattan the sergeant flourished proudly.
My father died when corporal, but I ne’er turned my back,
Till, promoted to the halberd, I was sergeant in a crack.
In sword and sash cut a dash,
Spurr’d and booted, next recruited
Hob and Clod--awkward squad,
Then began my rattan,
When boys unwilling came to drilling;
Till, made the colonel’s orderly, then who but I so bluff,
Led a very merry, hey down derry, sort of life enough.
‘Homeward, my lads!’ cried the general.--‘Huzza!’
Roll went the drum, and the fife played cheer’ly,
To quick time we footed, and sung all the way
‘Hey for the pretty girls we love so dearly!’
My father lived with jolly boys in bustle, jars, and strife,
And, like him, being fond of noise, I mean to take a wife
Soon as miss blushes ‘_y-i-s!_’
Rings, gloves, dears, loves,
Bells ringing, comrades singing,
Honeymoon finished soon,
Scolding, sighing, children crying!
Yet still a wedded life may prove, if taken smooth and rough,
A very merry, hey down derry, sort of life enough.
_Thomas Dibdin._
SOUTHEY
XLIV
THE STANDARD-BEARER OF THE BUFFS
Steep is the soldier’s path; nor are the heights
Of glory to be won without long toil
And arduous efforts of enduring hope;
Save when Death takes the aspirant by the hand,
And cutting short the work of years, at once
Lifts him to that conspicuous eminence.
Such fate was mine.--The standard of the Buffs
I bore at Albuera, on that day
When, covered by a shower, and fatally
For friends misdeem’d, the Polish lancers fell
Upon our rear. Surrounding me, they claim’d
My precious charge.--‘Not but with life!’ I cried,
And life was given for immortality.
The flag which to my heart I held, when wet
With that heart’s blood, was soon victoriously
Regain’d on that great day. In former times,
Marlborough beheld it borne at Ramilies;
For Brunswick and for liberty it waved
Triumphant at Culloden; and hath seen
The lilies on the Caribbean shores
Abased before it. Then too in the front
Of battle did it flap exultingly,
When Douro, with its wide stream interposed,
Saved not the French invaders from attack,
Discomfiture, and ignominious rout.
My name is Thomas: undisgraced have I
Transmitted it. He who in days to come
May bear the honour’d banner to the field,
Will think of Albuera, and of me.
_Robert Southey._
CAMPBELL
XLV
YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND
Ye Mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave!
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o’er the mountain-waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below,
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger’s troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.
_Thomas Campbell._
XLVI
THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC
Of Nelson and the North
Sing the glorious day’s renown,
When to battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark’s crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
By each gun the lighted brand
In a bold determined hand,
And the Prince of all the land
Led them on.
Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine;
While the sign of battle flew
On the lofty British line:
It was ten of April morn by the chime:
As they drifted on their path,
There was silence deep as death;
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.
But the might of England flushed
To anticipate the scene;
And her van the fleeter rushed
O’er the deadly space between.
‘Hearts of oak!’ our captains cried; when each gun
From its adamantine lips
Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.
Again! again! again!
And the havoc did not slack,
Till a feebler cheer the Dane,
To our cheering sent us back;--
Their shots along the deep slowly boom:--
Then ceased--and all is wail,
As they strike the shattered sail;
Or, in conflagration pale
Light the goom.
Now joy, Old England, raise
For the tidings of thy might,
By the festal cities’ blaze,
Whilst the wine-cup shines in light;
And yet amidst that joy and uproar,
Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep
By thy wild and stormy steep,
Elsinore!
_Thomas Campbell._
XLVII
MEN OF ENGLAND
Men of England! who inherit
Rights that cost your sires their blood!
Men whose undegenerate spirit
Has been proved on field and flood:--
By the foes you’ve fought uncounted,
By the glorious deeds you’ve done,
Trophies captured--breaches mounted,
Navies conquered--kingdoms won!
Yet, remember, England gathers
Hence but fruitless wreaths of fame,
If the freedom of your fathers
Glow not in your hearts the same.
What are monuments of bravery,
Where no public virtues bloom?
What avails in lands of slavery,
Trophied temples, arch, and tomb?
Pageants!--Let the world revere us
For our people’s rights and laws,
And the breasts of civic heroes
Bared in Freedom’s holy cause.
Yours are Hampden’s, Russell’s glory,
Sidney’s matchless shade is yours,--
Martyrs in heroic story,
Worth a hundred Agincourts!
We’re the sons of sires that baffled
Crown’d and mitred tyranny;--
They defied the field and scaffold
For their birthrights--so will we!
_Thomas Campbell._
CUNNINGHAM
XLVIII
THE BRITISH SAILOR’S SONG
Away with bayonet and with lance,
With corselet, casque, and sword;
Our island-king no war-horse needs,
For on the sea he’s lord.
His throne’s the war-ship’s lofty deck,
His sceptre is the mast;
His kingdom is the rolling wave,
His servant is the blast.
His anchor’s up, fair Freedom’s flag
Proud to the mast he nails;
Tyrants and conquerors bow your heads,
For there your terror sails.
I saw fierce Prussia’s chargers stand,
Her children’s sharp swords out;--
Proud Austria’s bright spurs streaming red
When rose the closing shout;
But soon the steeds rush’d masterless,
By tower, and town, and wood;
For lordly France her fiery youth
Poured o’er them like a flood.
Go, hew the gold spurs from your heels,
And let your steeds run free;
Then come to our unconquered decks,
And learn to reign at sea.
Behold yon black and batter’d hulk
That slumbers on the tide,
There is no sound from stem to stern,
For peace has pluck’d her pride;
The masts are down, the cannon mute
She shows nor sheet nor sail,
Nor starts forth with the seaward breeze,
Nor answers shout nor hail;
Her merry men, with all their mirth,
Have sought some other shore;
And she with all her glory on,
Shall rule the sea no more.
So landsmen speak. Lo! her top-masts
Are quivering in the sky;
Her sails are spread, her anchor’s raised,
There sweeps she gallant by.
A thousand warriors fill her decks;
Within her painted side
The thunder sleeps--man’s might has nought
Can match or mar her pride.
In victor glory goes she forth;
Her stainless flag flies free;
Kings of the earth, come and behold
How Britain reigns on sea!
When on your necks the armèd foot
Of fierce Napoleon trod,
And all was his, save the wide sea,
Where we triumphant rode,
He launched his terror and his strength,
Our sea-born pride to tame;
They came--they got the Nelson-touch,
And vanish’d as they came.
Go, hang your bridles in your halls,
And set your war-steeds free;
The world has one unconquer’d king,
And he reigns on the sea!
_Allan Cunningham._
BYRON
XLIX
ON LEAVING ENGLAND
Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe’er it lead!
Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean’s foam to sail
Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.
I’ve taught me other tongues--and in strange eyes
Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
A country with--aye, or without mankind;
Yet was I born where men are proud to be,--
Not without cause; and should I leave behind
The inviolate Island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,
Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My Spirit shall resume it--if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remembered in my line
With my land’s language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline,--
If my Fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar
My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honoured by the Nations--let it be--
And light the Laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan’s epitaph on me--
‘Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.’
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need--
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree
I planted,--they have torn me,--and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
_Byron._
L
THE ISLES OF GREECE
The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,--
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute.
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’
The mountains look on Marathon--
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free,
For standing on the Persians’ grave
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;--all were his!
He counted them at break of day--
And when the sun set where were they?
And where are they? And where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now,
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
’Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush--for Greece a tear!
Must _we_ but weep o’er days more blest?
Must _we_ but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!
What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;--the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
And answer, ‘Let one living head,
But one arise,--we come, we come!’
’Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain--in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call--
How answers each bold Bacchanal!
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade--
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine--
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
_Byron._
LI
THE EVE OF WATERLOO
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry--and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?--No--’twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet--
But, hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer--clearer--deadlier than before!
Arm! Arm! it is--it is--the cannon’s opening roar!
Within a windowed niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick’s fated Chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell;
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro--
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness--
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!
And there was mounting in hot haste--the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war,--
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips--‘The foe! They come! they come!’
And wild and high the ‘Camerons’ Gathering’ rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:--
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s--Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass--
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,--alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;--
Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms,--the day
Battle’s magnificently-stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse,--friend--foe,--in one red burial blent!
_Lord Byron._
WOLFE
LII
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
How the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone--
But we left him alone with his glory.
_Charles Wolfe._
HEMANS
LIII
THE BENDED BOW
There was heard the sound of a coming foe,
There was sent through Britain a bended bow;
And a voice was pour’d on the free winds far,
As the land rose up at the sign of war.
‘Heard you not the battle horn?--
Reaper! leave thy golden corn!
Leave it for the birds of heaven,
Swords must flash, and spears be riven!
Leave it for the winds to shed--
Arm! ere Britain’s turf grow red!’
And the reaper arm’d, like a freeman’s son;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.
‘Hunter! leave the mountain-chase!
Take the falchion from its place!
Let the wolf go free to-day,
Leave him for a nobler prey!
Let the deer ungall’d sweep by,--
Arm thee! Britain’s foes are nigh!’
And the hunter arm’d ere the chase was done;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.
‘Chieftain! quit the joyous feast!
Stay not till the song hath ceased:
Though the mead be foaming bright,
Though the fires give ruddy light,
Leave the hearth, and leave the hall--
Arm thee! Britain’s foes must fall.’
And the chieftain arm’d, and the horn was blown;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.
‘Prince! thy father’s deeds are told,
In the bower, and in the hold!
Where the goatherd’s lay is sung,
Where the minstrel’s harp is strung,
Foes are on thy native sea--
Give our bards a tale of thee!’
And the prince came arm’d, like a leader’s son;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.