Such was the stand our valour made,
By dauntless pluck, by deathless deed,
Brave handful who all undismayed,
Followed their fearless captain's lead,
And held the fort, and won the fight,
And reasserted England's Might.
ABOU KLEA (JANUARY 17, 1885)
OUR English manhood's still the same
As in the days of Waterloo ;
The sons uphold their fathers' fame,
Beneath strange skies of burning blue.
The race is growing old, some say,
And half worn out and past its prime;
But English rifles volley
And English manhood conquers time.
Then fear not, and veer not
From duty's narrow way:
What men have done, can still be done,
And shall be done to-day!
The broad wild desert stretched away
For many and many a weary league ;
Our soldiers suffered day by day,
Enduring hunger, thirst, fatigue.
But still, when their fierce foes they met,
They fought and conquered as of old :
The sun of England has not set;
Our nation's story is not told.
Then blench not and quench not
High hope's glad golden ray :
What men have done, can still be done,
And shall be done to-day!
[BORN 1833; Killed ai Khartoum, January 26,
In these wild later days when faith seems dead
And the old Hebrew creed a worn-out thing;
When hope in Heaven's eternal righteous King
Seems fading from the earth, despair instead
Filling the hearts of Youth and Age with dread
And crowning Winter and dethroning Spring;
When no man knows what the next morn may
bring;
While watching sunset flaunts, its soulless red;
When grim doubt trumphs, all hearts wax cold
And weary, yet again was faith new-born
In one man's heart on whom the world's first morn
Still gleamed, with God within the morning's gold :
God, disregarding this deep century's scorn,
Spake face to face with one man as of old.
O BOBS, it was a dreary day until you came and spoke,
The drizzle dripped so silent and the air it made us choke,
For the wind had quit the city, and the rain it fell and fell,
And the gloom was like the moments when a sexton tolls his bell.
But you spoke, light-footed captain, and the town began to smile,
We could see the streets and 'buses all a-grinning for a mile!
And the club forgot the climate, and the clerk forgot his till,
And they talked of little Roberts-and a distant stricken hill;
Of a hill where England sorrows, and has shed her mother tears,
Through the weary, weary waiting of the bitter, bitter
Of a hill where trembling statesmen dug our honour's shallow grave
Dried our blood with coward parchment and bowed down before a knave!
You put heart into the squadrons when they stand in grim array
You gave heart to England's Empire when you kept Majuba Day!
And the cheer that gives you answer rolls its thunder from afar
From the muddy streets of London, from the heights of Kandahar.
His aching loss he put away with firm and patriot hand,
Tearless the veteran turned from home to serve his Queen and land,
And the love he bears for England steeled the hand and nerved the brain
To the blow which broke rebellion, cleared our honour of its stain !
LADYSMITH
BY F. HARALD WILLIAMS
I. LADYSMITH OCCUPIED
FLUSHED with fight and red with glory,
Conquerors if backward flung,
Fresh from triumphs grim and gory,
Toward the goal the Army swung ;
Splendid, but with recent laurels
Dimmed by shadow of defeat,
Thirsting yet for nobler quarrels—
Never dreaming of retreat.
Day by day they grimly struggled,
Early on and on till late;
Night by night with doom they juggled,
Dodging Death and fighting Fate.
Nor a murmur once was spoken,
Stern endurance still unspent,
As with spirit all unbroken
On the bitter march they went.
Still with weary steps that stumbled,
Forward moved that constant tread,
Sleepless, silent, and unhumbled,
On and on the army sped,
Noble sons of noble mothers,
Proud of home and kin and kith,
Brothers to the aid of brothers,
On and on to Ladysmith.
There, through smoke of onset rifted
Soldiers who disdained to yield
Had for weal or woe uplifted
England's own broad battle-shield.
Right across the path of pillage
Was that iron rampart thrust,
While beneath it town and village
Safely hid in settled trust.
Frail and open seemed that shelter
And unguarded to the foes,
Helpless, as the fiery welter
Rocked it in volcanic throes;
But there was defence to bind it
With the force of Destiny,
And an Empire stood behind it
Armed in awful majesty.
And no fortress ever moulded
Girt securer chosen space,
Than those unseen walls which folded
In their fear that lonely place.
On its Outposts far the scourges
Fell with wrath and crimson rain
But the fierce assaulting surges
Beat and beat in thunder vain
There they kept the old flag flying
Day by day and prayed relief,
Weary, wounded, doomed, and dying-
Gallant men and noble chief
By the leaden tempest stricken,
Grandly stood or grandly fell-
Peril had but power to quicken
Faith that owned such holy spell.
Not alone the foe without them
Menaced them with fire and shot,
Sickness creeping round about them,
Fever, dysentery, and rot,
Struck the rider and the stallion,
Making merry as at feast
On the pick of each battalion-
Ruthless, smiting man and beast.
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