Full of hopes and aspirations
Were their hearts at dawn of day;
Now, with forms all rent and broken,
Bearing each some frightful token
Of a scene ne'er to be spoken,
In their silent sleep they lay.
Here a noble charger stiffens,
There his rider grasps the hilt
Of his sabre lying bloody
By his side, upon the muddy,
Trampled ground, which darkly ruddy
Shows the blood that he has spilt.
And to-night the moon shall shudder
As she looks down on the moor,
Where the dead of hostile races
Slumber, slaughtered in their places;
All their rigid ghastly faces
Spattered hideously with gore.
And the sleepers! ah, the sleepers
Make a Westminster that day;
'Mid the seething battle's lava!
And each man who fell shall have a
Proud inscription—BALAKLAVA,
Which shall never fade away.
A SHORT SERMON.
"He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord."
The night-wind comes in sudden squalls:
The ruddy fire-light starts and falls
Fantastically on the walls.
The bare trees all their branches wave;
The frantic wind doth howl and rave,
Like prairie-wolf above a grave.
The moon looks out; but cold and pale,
And seeming scar'd at this wild gale
Draws o'er her pallid face a veil.
In vain I turn the poet's page—
In vain consult some ancient sage—
I hear alone the tempest rage.