The Visions of England Part 21

Yet should we not forget 'Gainst that dun sea of foes How Egerton bank'd his line, Till in front a cloud uprose From the level rifle-mouths; and they dived With bayonet-thrust beneath; Clench'd teeth and sharp-drawn breath, Plunging to certain death,-- And yet survived!

Nor the gallant chief who led Those others, how he fell; When our men the captive guns Set free they loved so well, And embraced them as live things, by loss endear'd:-- Nor, when the crucial stroke On their last asylum broke, And e'en those hearts of oak Might well have fear'd,--

How Stanley to the fore The citadel rush'd to guard, With that old Albuera cry _Fifty-seventh_! _Die hard_!

Yet saw not how his lads clear the crest, And, each one confronting five, The stubborn squadrons rive, And backward, downward, drive,-- --Death-call'd to rest!

--O proud and sad for thee!

And proud and sad for those Who on that stern foreign field Not seeking, found repose, As for England dear their life they gladly shed!

Yet in death bethought them where, Not on these hillsides bare, But within sweet English air Their own home-dead

In a green and sure repose Beside G.o.d's house are laid:-- Then faced the charging foes Unmoved, unhelp'd, unafraid:-- For they knew that G.o.d would rate each shatter'd limb Death-torn for England's sake, And in Christ's own mercy take On the day when souls shall wake, Their souls to Him!

The battle of Inkermann was mainly fought on a ridge of rock which projects from the south-eastern angle of Sebastapol: the English centre of operations being the ill-fortified line named the 'Home Ridge.' The numbers engaged in field-operations, roughly speaking, were 4,000 English against 40,000 Russians.

_The curtain-mist_; The battle began about 6 A.M. under heavy mist and drizzling rain, which lasted for several hours. Through this curtain the Russian forces coming down from the hill were seen only when near enough to darken the mist by their ma.s.ses.

_Egerton_; He commanded four companies of the 77th, and charged early in the battle with brilliant success;--his men, about 250, scattering 1500 Russians.

_The gallant chief_; General Soimonoff, killed just after Egerton's charge.

_With that old Albuera cry_; Prominent in the defence of the English main base of operations, the Home Ridge, against a weighty Russian advance, was Captain Stanley, commanding the 57th. This regiment, it was said, at the battle of Albuera had been encouraged by its colonel with the words, 'Fifty-seventh, die hard':--and Stanley, having less than 400 against 2000, thought the time had come to remind his 'Die-hards' of their traditional gallantry;--after which he himself at once fell mortally wounded.

AFTER CAWNPORE

June: 1857

Fourteen, all told, no more, Pack'd close within the door Of that old idol-shrine: And at them, as they stand, And from that English band, The leaden shower went out, and Death proclaim'd them _Mine_!

Fourteen against an army; they, no more, Had 'scaped Cawnpore.

With each quick volley-flash The bullets ping and plash: Yet, though the tropic noon With furnace-fury broke The sulphur-curling smoke, Scarr'd, sear'd, thirst-silenced, hunger-faint, they stood: And soon A dusky wall,--death sheltering life,--uprose Against their foes.

Behind them now is cast The horror of the past; The fort that was no fort, The deep dark-heaving flood Of foes that broke in blood On our devoted camp, victims of fiendish sport; From that last huddling refuge lured to fly, --And help so nigh!

Down toward the reedy sh.o.r.e That fated remnant pour, Had Fear and Death beside; And other spectres yet Of darker vision flit,-- Old unforgotten wrongs, the harshness and the pride Of that imperial race which sway'd the land By sheer command!

O little hands that strain A mother's hand in vain With terror vague and vast:-- Parch'd eyes that cannot shed One tear upon the head, A young child's head, too bright for such fell death to blast!

Ah! sadder captive train ne'er filed to doom Through vengeful Rome!

From Ganges' reedy sh.o.r.e The death-boats they unmoor, Stack'd high with hopeless hearts; A slowly-drifting freight Through the red jaws of Fate, Death-blazing banks between, and flame-wing'd arrow-darts:-- Till down the holy stream those cargoes pour Their flame and gore.

In feral order slow The slaughter-barges go, Martyrs of heathen scorn: While, saved from flood and fire To glut the tyrant's ire, The quick and dead in one, from their red shambles borne, Maiden and child, in that dark grave they throw, Our well of woe!

Ah spot on which we gaze Through Time's all-softening haze, In peace, on them at peace And taken home to G.o.d!

--O whether 'neath the sod, Or sea, or desert sand, what care,--if that release From this dim shadow-land, through pathways dim, Bear us to Him!

But those fourteen, the while, Wrapt in the present, smile On their grim baffled foe; Till o'er the wall he heaps The fuel-pile, and steeps With all that burns and blasts;--and now, perforce, they go Hack'd down and thinn'd, beyond that temple-door But Seven,--no more.

O Elements at strife With this poor human life, Stern laws of Nature fair!

By flame constrain'd to fly The treacherous stream they try,-- And those dark Ganges waves suck down the souls they bear!-- Ah, crowning anguis.h.!.+ Dawn of hope in sight; Then, final night!

And now, Four heads, no more, Life's flotsam flung ash.o.r.e, They lie:--But not as they Who o'er a dreadful past The heart's-ease sigh may cast!

Too worn! too tried!--their lives but given them as a prey!

Whilst all seems now a dream, a nought of nought, For which they fought!

--O stout Fourteen, who bled O'erwhelm'd, not vanquished!

In those dark days of blood How many dared, and died, And others at their side Fresh heroes, sprang,--a race that cannot be subdued!

--Like them who pa.s.s'd Death's vale, and lived;--the Four Saved from Cawnpore!

The English garrison at Cawnpore, with a large number of sick, women, and children, were besieged in their hastily made and weak earthworks by Nana Sahib from June 6 to June 25, 1857. Compelled to surrender, under promise of safe convoy down the Ganges, on the 27th they were ma.s.sacred by musketry from the banks; the thatch of the river-boats being also fired. The survivors were murdered and thrown into the well upon Havelock's approach on July 15.

One boat managed to escape unburnt on June 27. It was chased through the 28th and 29th, by which time the crowd on board was reduced to fourteen men, one of whom, Mowbray-Thomson, has left a narrative equally striking from its vividness and its modesty. Seven escaped from the small temple in which they defended themselves; four only finally survived to tell the story.

_A dusky wall_; 'After a little time they stood behind a rampart of black and b.l.o.o.d.y corpses, and fired, with comparative security, over this bulwark:' (Kaye: _Sepoy War_: B. V: ch. ii).

MOUNT VERNON

October 5: 1860

Before the hero's grave he stood, --A simple stone of rest, and bare To all the blessing of the air,-- And Peace came down in sunny flood From the blue haunts of heaven, and smiled Upon the household reconciled.

--A hundred years have hardly flown Since in this hermitage of the West 'Mid happy toil and happy rest, Loving and loved among his own, His days fulfill'd their fruitful round, Seeking no move than what they found.

Sweet byways of the life withdrawn!

Yet here his country's voice,--the cry Of man for natural liberty,-- That great Republic in her dawn, The immeasurable Future,--broke; And to his fate the Leader woke.

Not eager, yet, the blade to bare Before the Father-country's eyes,-- --E'en if a parent's rights, unwise, With that bold Son he grudged to share, In manhood strong beyond the sea, And ripe to wed with Liberty!

--Yet O! when once the die was thrown, With what unselfish patient skill, Clear-piercing flame of changeless will, The one high heart that moved alone Sedate through the chaotic strife,-- He taught mankind the hero-life!

As when the G.o.d whom Pheidias moulds, Clothed in marmoreal calm divine, Veils all that strength 'neath beauty's line, All energy in repose enfolds;-- So He, in self-effacement great, Magnanimous to endure and wait.

O Fabius of a wider world!

Master of Fate through self-control And utter stainlessness of soul!

And when war's weary sign was furl'd, Prompt with both hands to welcome in The white-wing'd Peace he warr'd to win!

Then, to that so long wish'd repose!

The liberal leisure of the farm, The garden joy, the wild-wood charm; Life ebbing to its perfect close Like some white altar-lamp that pales And self-consumed its light exhales.

No wrathful tempest smote its wing Against life's tender flickering flame; No tropic gloom in terror came; Slow waning as a summer-spring The soul breathed out herself, and slept, And to the end her beauty kept.

Then, as a mother's love and fears Throng round the child, unseen but felt, So by his couch his nation knelt, Loving and wors.h.i.+pping with her tears:-- Tears!--late amends for all that debt Due to the Liberator yet!