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,
Flashed all at once in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there;
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered;
Plunged in the battery smoke,
With many a desperate stroke,
The Russian line they broke,
Then they rode back, but not-
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them,
Volleyed and thundered :
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
Those that had fought so well
Came from the jaws of death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them-
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
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 restWith 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 that was 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 nothing 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 tolled 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, we raised not a stone, But we left him, alone with his glory!
INTO a ward of the whitewashed halls,
Where the dead and dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls,
Somebody's Darling was borne one day-
Somebody's Darling, so young and so brave,
Wearing yet on his pale sweet face,
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood's grace.
Matted and damp are the curls of gold,
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow,
Pale are the lips of delicate mould-
Somebody's Darling is dying now.
Back from his beautiful blue-veined brow
Brush all the wandering waves of gold,
Cross his hands on his bosom now,
Somebody's Darling is still and cold.
Kiss him once for Somebody's sake,
Murmur a prayer soft and low;
One bright curl from its fair mates take,
They were Somebody's pride, you know:
Somebody's hand had rested there;
Was it a mother's, soft and white?
And have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptised in the waves of light?
God knows best; He has Somebody's love;
Somebody's heart enshrined him there;
Somebody wafted his name above
Night and morn on the wings of prayer. Somebody wept when he marched away, Looking so handsome, brave, and grand; Somebody's kiss on his forehead lay, Somebody clung to his parting hand.
Somebody's waiting and watching for him—
Yearning to hold him again to their heart;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling childlike lips apart.
Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab at his head,——
Somebody's Darling slumbers here."
TAKE them, O Death! and bear away
Whatever thou canst call thine own!
Thine image, stamped upon this clay,
Doth give thee that, but that alone!
Take them, O Grave! and let them lie
Folded upon thy narrow shelves,
As garments by the soul laid by,
And precious only to ourselves!
Take them, O great Eternity!
Our little life is but a gust,
That bends the branches of thy tree,
And trails its blossoms in the dust!
THE CURFEW-SONG OF ENGLAND.
HARK! from the dim church tower,
The deep, slow Curfew's chime !-
A heavy sound unto hall and bower
In England's olden time.
Sadly 'twas heard by him who came
From the fields of his toil at night,
And who might not see his own hearth-flame
In his children's eyes make light.
Sternly and sadly heard,
As it quenched the wood-fire's glow,
Which had cheered the board with the mirthful word,
And the red wine's foaming flow
Until that sullen, boding knell,
Flung out from every fane,
On harp, and lip, and spirit, fell,
With a weight and with a chain.
Woe for the pilgrim then
In the wild deer's forest far!
No cottage lamp, to the haunts of men,
Might guide him as a star.
And woe for him whose wakeful soul,
With lone aspirings filled,
Would have lived o'er some immortal scroll,
While the sounds of earth were stilled!
And yet a deeper woe
For the watcher by the bed,
Where the fondly-loved in pain lay low,
In pain and sleepless dread!
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