MONTEREY [SEPTEMBER 23, 1846] WE were not many, we who stood Have been with us at Monterey. Now here, now there, the shot it hailed In deadly drifts of fiery spray, Yet not a single soldier quailed When wounded comrades round them wailed Their dying shout at Monterey. And on-still on our column kept Through walls of flame its withering way; The foe himself recoiled aghast, When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey. Our banners on those turrets wave, We are not many-we who pressed But who of us has not confessed Charles Fenno Hoffman [1806-1884] PESCHIERA [MAY, 1848] WHAT voice did on my spirit fall, I see the Croat soldier stand Yet not in vain, although in vain, You said: "Since so it is, good-bye, You said (there shall be answer fit): You said (O not in vain you said): Ah! not for idle hatred, not You did, what will not be forgot. And though the stranger stand, 'tis true, This voice did on my spirit fall, Than never to have fought at all." Arthur Hugh Clough [1819-1861] THE LOSS OF THE BIRKENHEAD SUPPOSED TO BE TOLD BY A SOLDIER WHO SURVIVED [FEBRUARY 26, 1852] RIGHT on our flank the crimson sun went down; A cry of women rose. The stout ship Birkenhead lay hard and fast, Caught without hope upon a hidden rock; Her timbers thrilled as nerves, when through them passed The spirit of that shock. And ever like base cowards, who leave their ranks Drifted away disorderly the planks From underneath her keel. So calm the air, so calm and still the flood, repass. They tarried, the waves tarried, for their prey! The sea turned one clear smile! Like things asleep As quiet as the deep. Then amidst oath, and prayer, and rush, and wreck, To die!-'twas hard, whilst the sleek ocean glowed Our English hearts beat true:-we would not stir: To keep without a spot! They shall not say in England, that we fought So we made women with their children go, Whilst, inch by inch, the drowning ship sank low, -What follows, why recall?-The brave who died, Died without flinching in the bloody surf, They sleep as well beneath that purple tide, As others under turf: They sleep as well! and, roused from their wild grave, Wearing their wounds like stars, shall rise again, Joint-heirs with Christ, because they bled to save His weak ones, not in vain. Francis Hastings Doyle [1810-1888] THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE [BALACLAVA, OCTOBER 25, 1852] HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Theirs but to do and die: Cannon to right of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. Flashed all their sabres bare, All the world wondered: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right through the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reeled from the sabre-stroke, Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not, Not the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them |