2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew
Some one had blundered:
Thêirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die-
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
8. Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
4. Flashed all their sabers bâre,
Flashed as they turned in âir,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the saber-stroke,
Shattered and sundered
Then they rode back—but not,
Not the six hundred.
5. Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
6. When can their glory fade ?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
AST night when weary silence fell on all,
And starless skies arose so dim and våst,
I heard the Spirit of the Present call
Upon the sleeping Spirit of the Påst.
Far off and near, I saw their radiance shine,
And listened while they spoke of deeds divine.
THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST.
2. My deeds are writ in vain ;
My glōry stands alone;
A veil of shadowy honor
Upon my tomb is thrown;
The great names of my heroes
Like gems in history lie;
To live they deemed ignoble,
Had they the chance to die!
THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESENT.
3. My children, too, are honored;
Dear shall their memory be
To the proud land that owns them ;
Dearer than thine to thee;
1 Alfred Tennyson, poet-laureate of England, born in Lincolnshire in 1812.
For, though they hold that sacred
Is God's great gift of life,
At the first call of duty
They rush into the strife!
THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST.
4. Then with all the valiant precepts Woman's soft heart was fraught; "Death, not dishonor," echoed The war-cry she had taught. Fearless and glad, those mothers, At bloody deaths elate,
Cried out, they bore their children
Only for such a fate!
THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESENT. 5. Though such stern laws of honor Are faded now away,
Yet many a mourning mother,
With nobler grief than they,
Bows down in sad submission:
The heroes of the fight
Learnt at her knee the lesson,
"For God and for the Right!"
THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST.
6. Then each one strove for honor,
Each for a deathless name;
Love, home, rest, joy, were offered
As sacrifice to fame.
They longed that in far ages
Their deeds might still be told,
And distant times and nations
Their names in honor hold.
THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESENT.. 7. Though nûrsed by such old legends,
Our heroes of to-day,
Go cheerfully to battle,
As children go to play;
They gaze with awe and wonder
On your great names of pride,
Unconscious that their own will shine
In glōry side by side.
8. Day dawned; and as the Spirits passed away,
I thought I saw, in the dim morning gray,
The Past's bright diadem had paled befōre
The starry crown the glorious Present wōre.
WE sleep, and wake, and sleep, but all things move;
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
The dark Earth follows, wheeled in her ellipse :
And human things returning on themselves
Move onward, leading up the golden year.
2. Ah, though the times when some new thought can bud Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,
Yet seas that daily gain upon the shōre
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,
And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
3. When wealth no mōre shall rest in mounded heaps,
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
In many streams to fatten lower lands,
And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Through all the seasons of the golden year.
4. Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?
If all the world were faleons, what of that?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. Happy days
Roll onward, leading up the golden year.
5. Fly, happy, happy sails, and beâr the Press;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward,
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of tōll,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.
6. But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Through all the circle of the golden year?
99. THE EMPRESS MATILDA
[Scene from "St. Thomas of Canterbury."]
MPRESS MATILDA. Speak on, my child.
old oaks once more,
As of your merry stag-hunts you discoursed,
Above me sighed, and kindlier airs than those
Which now I breathe with pain. Speak thou; I listen.
If I had had such brother! Yours is dead.
Such loss means this, that he-none else—shall walk
Beside you still, when all save him are gray,
Idonea.
Not Time itself could change him !
That light which cheers me still from eyes unseen,
That wild sweet smile around imagined lips,
A moment's breathless, magic visitation,
Which falls upon me like a kiss and flies,
Are scarcely more with youth perpetual bright
Than was his spirit. Mind he seemed, all mind!
In childhood flower, and weed, and bird, and beast,
Nature's fair pageant2 to the eye of others,
To him was that and more. Old Bertram said
There lurked more insight in his pupil's questions
Than in conclusions of the sage self-styled.
He never had grown old!
1 Ma til'da, daughter of Henry I. of England, and widow of Henry V., Emperor of Germany, married Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, in 1127, and became the mother of
Henry II. of England.
2 Pǎg' eant, something showy, without stability or duration; a fleeting show.
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