Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our livesWomen and children among us, God

help them, our children and wives! Hold it we might-and for fifteen days or for twenty at most. "Never surrender, I charge you, but

every man die at his post!" Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence, the best of the brave; Cold were his brows when we kiss'd him-we laid him that night in his grave. "Every man die at his post!" and there hail'd on our houses and halls Death from their rifle bullets, and death from their cannon-balls, Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight barricade, Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stooped to the spade, Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell, Striking the hospital wall, crashing

thro' it, their shot and their shell, Death-for their spies were among us. their marksmen were told of our best,

So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that could think for the rest; Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet

1 "The old flag used during the defence of the Residency, was hoisted on the Lucknow flagstaff by General Wilson, and the soldiers who still survived from the siege were all mustered on parade in honor of this poem, when my son Lionel (who died on his journey from India) visited Lucknow. A tribute overwhelmingly touching." (Tennyson.)

Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day Soon as the blast of that underground thunder-clap echo'd away

Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hellCannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yellFiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell.

What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan! Storm at the Water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm, and it ran Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side

Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drowned by the tide-So many thousands that, if they be bold enough, who shall escape? Kill or be kill'd, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men! Ready! take aim at their leaders-their

masses are gapp'd with our grapeBackward they reel like the wave, like

the wave fingering forward again, Flying and foil'd at the last by the handful they could not subdue; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew!

IV

Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb, Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure,

Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him; Still-could we watch at all points? we were every day fewer and fewer. There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that past: "Children and wives-if the tigers leap into the fold unawaresEvery man die at his post-and the foe may outlive us at last

Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into theirs!" Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy sprung Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades.

Riflemen, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true! Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusiladesTwice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung,

Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand-grenades;

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew !

Then on another wild morning another wild earthquake out-tore

Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good paces or more. Riflemen, high on the roof, hidden there

from the light of the sun One has leaped up on the breach, crying out: " Follow me, follow me!"

Mark him he falls! then another and him too, and down goes he. Had they been bold enough then, who

can tell but the traitors had won? Boardings and rafters and doors-an

embrasure! make way for the gun! Now double-charge it with grape! It is

charged and we fire, and they run. Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his due! Thanks to the kindly dark faces who

fought with us, faithful and few, Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them, and slew,

That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India blew.

VI Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight!

But to be soldier all day, and be sentinel all thro' the night

Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms,

Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms, Ever the labor of fifty that had to be done by five,

Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive,

Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes around, Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground,

Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies,

Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies,

Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field,

Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be heal'd. Lopping away of the limb by the pitifulpitiless knife,

Torture and trouble in vain,-for it never could save us a life,

Valor of delicate women who tended the hospital bed,

Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead,

Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief,

Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief,

Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butcher'd for all that we knew

Then day and night, day and night, coming down on the still-shatter'd walls

Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon-balls

But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.

VII

Hark cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout, Outram and Havelock breaking their

way through the fell mutineers? Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears?

All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout,

Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer

with conquering cheers,

Sick from the hospital echo them, women
and children come out,
Blessing the wholesome white faces of
Havelock's good fusileers.

WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea

And Willy's voice in the wind, "O mother, come out to me!"

Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go? For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow.

We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town. The loud black nights for us, and the

storm rushing over the down, When I cannot see my own hand, but

am led by the creak of the chain, And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the

rain.

Anything fallen again? nay-what was there left to fall?

I have taken them home, I have number'd the bones, I have hidden them all.

What am I saying? and what are you?

do you come as a spy! Falls? what falls? who knows? As the

tree falls so must it lie.

Who let her in? how long has she been? you-what have you heard? Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word. O-to pray with me-yes-a lady-none of their spies

But the night has crept into my heart,

and begun to darken my eyes. Ah-you, that have lived so soft, what should you know of the night, The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright? I have done it, while you were asleepyou were only made for the day. See the Life of Tennyson II, 249-251.

I have gather'd my baby together-and now you may go your way.

Nay-for it's kind of you, madam, to sit by an old dying wife.

But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life.

I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.

"They dared me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipped him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child— "The farmer dared me to do it," he said; he was always so wild

And idle-and could n't be idle-my Willy-be never could rest. The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.

But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good;

They swore that he dare not rob the

mail, and he swore that he would; And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done He flung it among his fellows—“ I 'll none of it," said my son.

I came into court to the judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale, God's own truth-but they kill'd him, they kill'd him for robbing the mail.

They hang'd him in chains for a showwe had always borne a good

name

To be hang'd for a thief-and then put away-is n't that enough shame? Dust to dust-low down-let us hide!

but they set him so high That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. God 'll pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air,

But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him and hang'd him there.

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last good-bye; They had fasten'd the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard him cry.

I could n't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say,

And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away.

Then since I could n't but hear that cry of my boy that was dead, They seized me and shut me up: they fasten'd me down on my bed. "Mother, O mother!"-he call'd in the dark to me year after year— They beat me for that, they beat meyou know that I could n't but hear;

And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still They let me abroad again-but the creatures had worked their will.

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left

I stole them all from the lawyers-and you, will you call it a theft?My baby, the bones that had suck'd me, the bones that had laughed and had criedTheirs? O, no! they are mine-not theirs they had moved in my side.

Do you think I was scared by the bones? I kiss'd 'em, I buried 'em all

I can't dig deep, I am old-in the night by the churchyard wall. My Willy'll rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment 'll sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground.

They would scratch him up-they would hang him again on the cursed tree. Sin? O, yes, we are sinners, I know-let all that be,

And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's goodwill toward men

"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord"-let me hear it again; "Full of compassion and mercy-longsuffering." Yes, O, yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder

the Saviour lives but to bless. He'll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst,

And the first may be last-I have heard it in church-and the last may be first. Suffering-O, long-suffering-yes, as the Lord must know,

Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow.

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented his sin. How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of his kin?

Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began,

The wind that I wail like a child and the sea that 'll moan like a man? Elcation, Election, and Reprobationit's all very well.

But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in hell.

For I cared so much for my boy that the
Lord has look'd into my care,
And He means me I 'm sure to be happy
with Willy, I know not where.

And if he be lost-but to save my soul, that is all your desire

Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire?

I have been with God in the dark-go, go, you may leave me aloneYou never have borne a child-you are just as hard as a stone.

Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the windThe snow and the sky so bright-he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet

ROMAN VIRGIL, thou that singest Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;

Landscape-lover, lord of language more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"

All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase;

Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;

All the charm of all the Muses

often flowering in a lonely word;

Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers; Poet of the poet-satyr whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea;

Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind;

Thou majestic in thy sadness at the

doubtful doom of human kind;

Light among the vanish'd ages; star that gildest yet this phantom shore; Golden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise no more;

Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Cæsar's domeTho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound forever of Imperial Rome

Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd, and the Rome of freemen holds her place,

I, from out the Northern Island sunder'd once from all the human race,

1 "To Virgil was written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of Virgil's Death." (Life of Tennyson, II, 320.)

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!

So they row'd, and there we landed-"O venusta Sirmio!"

There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow,

There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,

Came that " Ave atque Vale" of the Poet's hopeless woe,

Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago

"Frater Ave atque Vale” - as we wander'd to and fro

Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below

Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olivesilvery Sirmio! 1883.

EPILOGUE TO THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE

And here the Singer for his art Not all in vain may plead "The song that nerves a nation's heart Is in itself a deed." 1885.

VASTNESS

MANY a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish'd face,

Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanish'd race.

Raving politics, never at rest-as this poor earth's pale history runs,What is it all but a trouble of ants in the

gleam of a million million of suns? Lies upon this side, lies upon that side, truthless violence mourn'd by the wise, Thousands of voices drowning his own in a popular torrent of lies upon lies;

Stately purposes, valor in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet,

Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause, trumpets of victory. groans of defeat;