Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our
lives-
Women and children among us, God help them, our children and
wives!
Hold it we might, and for fifteen days, or for twenty at most.
"Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!"
Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Laurence, the best of the
brave:
Cold were his brows when we kissed him-we laid him that night in
his grave.
"Every man die at his post!" and there halted on our houses and
halls
Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-
balls;
Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight
barricade;
Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stooped
to the spade;
Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there
fell,
Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro' it, their shot and
their shell;
Death--for their spies were among us, their marksmen were told of
our best,
So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that would think
for the rest;
Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at
our feet--
Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels who girdled us
round--
Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a
street;
Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in
the ground!
Mine? Yes, a mine. Countermine! down, down! and creep thro' the
hole!
Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him--the murderous mole!
Quiet, ah! quiet--wait till the point of the pick-ax be thro'!
Click with the pick coming nearer and nearer again than before--
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more;
And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England blew.