THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS
Last night among his fellows rough
He jested, quaffed, and swore:
A drunken private of the Buffs,
Who never looked 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,
Bewildered 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!—
He only knows that not through him
Shall England come to shame.
Far Kentish hopfields round him seemed
Like dreams to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed
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,
Doomed 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;
Unless proud England keep, untamed,
The strong heart of her sons!
So, let his name through Europe ring—
A man of mean estate
Who died, as firm as Sparta's king,
Because his soul was great.
F. H. Doyle