Have I not fought for Church and King? Then, soldiers, tell me why
Ye slay not me and Norwich too,
If Lisle and Lucas die?
Have we not fought as well as they?
Have we not suffered too?
Have we not done and dared as much
As their brave hearts could do?
Then let us die, as we have lived,
One true and faithful band,
For life has no more joy for me
In this dishonoured land!"
In vain his words; and Lucas speaks
In calm and measured tone:
My brother, side by side we fought,
But we must die alone.
I thought not when, in days of yore,
My gentle mother smiled,
To see those virtues trampled down
She taught me when a child;
But this is England's trial day-
A strange and fearful time-
And loyalty is treason now,
And faithfulness a crime.
Farewell, my brother Cavaliers !
I glory in my death,
God save King Charles! and England too! Shall be my latest breath."
"Fire!"-the time of grace is past-
The word of doom is given,-
A lifeless corse is on the ground,
A martyr's soul in Heaven!
In silence Lisle embraced his friend,
As on the ground he lay,
Then looked upon the rebel troops,
Then slowly turned away.
"Aim true!" he cried.
"We'll hit you, never fear.”
"I've known you miss me," shouted he,
When many a time more near.”
A gleam of joy lit up his eyes,
Bright memories of yore—
The battle song, the royal words,
All, all came back once more.
No gloom was on his noble face,
He smiled on friend and foe;
He knew the friend he loved was gone
Where he, too, longed to go.
He looked on high, he gave the word
The bullets pierced his head,
And ere the smoke had passed away
He fell by Lucas-dead!
ON ELIZABETH, DAUGHTER OF
"THOU seem'st a rosebud born in snow,
A flowre of purpose sprung to bow
To heedless tempests, and the rage
Of an incensed stormie age.
And yet as balm-trees gently spend
Their tears for those that do them rend,
Thou didst not murmur nor revile,
But drank'st thy wormwood with a smile.”
From a prize poem by Reginald Heber, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, commemorating first the Crusaders, and then Sir Sidney Smith's repulse of Napoleon before Acre.
THERE, where her fiery race the desert pour'd,
And pale Byzantium1 fear'd Medina's sword,
When coward Asia shook in trembling woe,
And bent appall'd before the Bactrian2 bow:
2 From Bactria-the old name of Tartary. The Turks, who had subdued the Saracen Arabs of Asia, were originally called Tartars.
From the moist regions of the western star
The wand'ring hermit wak'd the storm of war.
Their limbs all iron, and their souls all flame,
A countless host, the red-cross warriors came :
E'en hoary priests the sacred combat wage,
And clothe in steel the palsied arm of age;
While beardless youths and tender maids assume
The weighty morion' and the glancing plume.
In bashful pride the warrior virgins wield
The ponderous falchion, and the sun-like shield,
And start to see their armour's iron gleam,
Dance with blue lustre in Tabaria's2 stream.
The blood-red banner floating o'er their van,
All madly blithe the mingled myriads ran ;
Impatient Death beheld his destin'd food,
And hovering vultures snuff'd the scent of blood.
Not such the numbers, nor the host so dread, By northern Brenn, or Scythian1 Timur led; Nor such the heart-inspiring zeal that bore United Greece to Phrygia's reedy shore!
There Gaul's proud knights with boastful mien advance,
Form the long line, and shake the cornel5 lance;
2 Tabaria is a corruption of Tiberias.
3 Brennus, who led the Gauls to Rome.
4 Timour the Tartar, who overran the East.
5 Made from the wood of the cornelian cherry-tree.
Here, link'd with Thrace, in close battalions stand
Ausonia's1 sons, a soft inglorious band;
There the stern Norman joins the Austrian train,
And the dark tribes of late-reviving Spain;
Here in black files, advancing firm and slow,
Victorious Albion twangs the deadly bow:
Albion, still prompt the captive's wrong to aid,
And wield in freedom's cause the freeman's generous
blade!
Ye sainted spirits of the warrior dead,
Whose giant force Britannia's armies led!
Whose bickering falchions, foremost in the fight,
Still pour'd confusion on the Soldan's might;
Lords of the biting axe and beamy spear,
Wide-conquering Edward, lion Richard, hear!
At Albion's call your crested pride resume,
And burst the marble slumbers of the tomb!
Your sons, behold, in arm, in heart the same,
Still press the footsteps of parental fame,
To Salem still their generous aid supply,
And pluck the palm of Syrian chivalry!
When he, from towery Malta's yielding isle
And the green waters of reluctant Nile,
Th' apostate chief,3 from Misraim's subject shore
To Acre's walls his trophied banners bore;
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