THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE,
WHO FELL AT THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA, IN 1808.
Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried,
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero was buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moon-beam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound 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 smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
That 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 toll'd the hour for retiring;
And we heard by the distant and random gun,
That the foe was suddenly 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,