Now reverse the sounding song:
See those flashing blades again,
Bursting through the scattering throng,
Backward seek the opening plain !

45

Few there ride the ranks to fill,

But they ride unbroken still.

Ride! ye brave ones-ride for life,

Well ye've won a soldier's meed :
Heroes in the onward strife,

50

Vainly now ye gasp and bleed :

First and last this fatal day,
Homeward cleave your fiery way.

Staggering o'er the encumber'd plain,

On they come! torn-panting-bleeding,

Like a broken wave receding,

55

Backward rolling to the main :

Helmets drooping-riders stooping,

Dauntless hearts-and dying men.

60

S. GREG.

A PASTORAL.1

DAY.

IN the barn the tenant cock

Close to Partlet perch'd on high,

Briskly crows, (the shepherd's clock !)

Jocund that the morning's nigh.

Swiftly from the mountain's brow,
Shadows nursed by night retire;
And the peeping sunbeam now,
Paints with gold the village spire.

Philomel forsakes the thorn,
Plaintive where she prates at night;
And the lark to meet the morn,
Soars beyond the shepherd's sight.

1 A poem descriptive of country scenery and life.

5

IO

Trickling through the creviced rock
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock,

25

When 'tis sun-drove from the hills.

FERVID on the glitt'ring flood,
Now the noon-tide radiance glows:
Dropping o'er its infant bud,
Not a dew-drop's left the rose.

By the brook the shepherd dines;
From the fierce meridian heat
Shelter'd by the branching pines,
Pendent o'er his grassy seat.

40

Where the streamlet wanders cool;
Or with languid silence stand

55

Midway in the marshy pool.

But from mountain, dell, or stream,
Not a flutt'ring zephyr springs ;

Now he hides behind the hill,
Sinking from a golden sky:
Can the pencil's mimic skill,
Copy the refulgent dye?

Trudging as the ploughmen go
(To the smoking hamlet bound),
Giant-like their shadows grow,
Lengthen'd o'er the level ground.

Where the rising forest spreads
Shelter for the lordly dome !
To their high-built airy beds
See the rooks returning home!

As the lark with varied tune,
Carols to the evening loud;
Mark the mild resplendent moon,
Breaking through a parted cloud!

Now the hermit owlet peeps
From the barn or twisted brake,
And the blue mist slowly creeps,
Curling on the silver lake.

As the trout in speckled pride,
Playful from its bosom springs ;
To the banks a ruffled tide
Verges in successive rings.

Tripping through the silken grass,
O'er the path-divided dale,
Mark the rose-complexion'd lass,
With her well-poised milking-pail.

Linnets with unnumber'd notes,
And the cuckoo bird with two,
Tuning sweet their mellow throats,
Bid the setting sun adieu.

80

85

90

95

100

J. CUNNINGHAM.

105

D

THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA.

LAST night among his fellow-roughs

He jested, quaff'd, and swore : A drunken private of the Buffs, Who never look'd before.

To-day, beneath the foeman's frown,

He stands in Elgin's place,
Ambassador from Britain's crown,
And type of all her race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewilder'd, and alone,

A heart, with English instinct fraught,

He yet can call his own.

Ay! tear his body limb from limb;
Bring cord, or axe, or flame !—

5

ΙΟ

He only knows, that not through him
Shall England come to shame.

15

Far Kentish hopfields round him seem'd
Like dreams to come and go ;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleam'd,
One sheet of living snow:

The smoke above his father's door

In gray soft eddyings hung :—

Must he then watch it rise no more,

Doom'd by himself, so young?

Yes, Honour calls !—with strength like steel
He put the vision by:

Let dusky Indians whine and kneel ;

An English lad must die !

;

And thus, with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,

Unfaltering on its dreadful brink

To his red grave he went.

-Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed ;
Vain, those all-shattering guns;

20

25

330

1 Founded on a real story of the English campaign in China, 1860.