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 stoopt 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 feetFire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled us roundDeath at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a street, Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in the

ground!

Mine? Yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! and creep thro' the hole!

Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him-the murderous mole!
Quiet, ah! quiet-wait till the point of the pick axe be thro'!
Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again than before-
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew!

Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day
Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap echo'd away,
Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hell-
Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell-
Fiercely 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 drown'd 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 grape

Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging 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.

Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and 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 unawares-
Every 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.
Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true!
Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusillades—
Twice 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 handgrenades;

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.
Rifleman, high on the roof, hidden there from the light of the sun-
One has leapt 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.

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 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 pitiful-pitiless 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 butchered 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.

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,
Kissing the war-harden'd hand of the Highlander wet with their tears!
Dance to the pibroch!-saved! we are saved!—is it you? is it you?
Saved by the valor of Havelock, saved by the blessing of Heaven!
"Hold it for fifteen days!" we have held it for eighty-seven!
And ever aloft on the palace-roof the old banner of England blew.

From Locksley Hall.

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn;
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time;
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed;
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."
On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs-
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes-

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee

long."

Love took up the glass of time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.
Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the spring.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!
Is it well to wish thee happy?-having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine,
Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, take his hand in thine.
It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought;
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.
He will answer to the purpose easy things to understand-
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!
Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!
Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,

When the ranks are roll'd in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.
Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!
Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;
Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,
And at night along the dusky highway, near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;
And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;