II
Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our
lives-
Women 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 Laurence, the best of the
brave:
Cold were his brows when we kissed him-we laid him that night in
his grave.
"Every man die at his post!" and there halted 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 would think
for the rest;
Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at
our feet—
Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels who girdled us
round—
Death 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-ax 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 our topmost roof our banner of England blew.