The far right of the line’s in peril sore
At the dawn of another day,
And though sorely pressed by the Sultan’s corps,
They will die, but never give way.
This I saw as the glaring sun uprose,
And the conflict still shook the world;
And in mighty mass all along the front,
The vast foot and horse were hurled.
And the earth was heaped and pent with the slain,
And their blood like a river ran,
And ne’er was witnessed such a battle-scene
Since ever this strange world began.
And I see through the red rays of the sun
A glad sight that my bosom thrills:
’Tis Roberts, debouching in rear of the foe,
From the sheltering Himalayan hills.
’Twas he that had disappeared to the right
Ere the dreadful conflict began;
’Twas Wolseley’s masterful, strategic stroke—
A card in his vast battle plan.
With the flower of the Ind and British Guards
He fell on the brave Sultan’s rear
With half a million of horse and foot,
With a prolonged, thunderous cheer.
And they shattered the Moslems from right to left,
And lent and tore them asunder
By the infantry’s fire, and sabre stroke,
And the batteries’ awful thunder.
Crushed to atoms between the two lines,
The Sultan’s ruin is complete,
And he lays his flaming scimitar down
At the invincible Roberts’ feet.
The critical time had now arrived
To deliver a crushing blow,
And Wolseley redoubled all the fire
Of his guns on the suffering foe;
And the infantry close up, and again
They a devastating fire pour,
And the bicycle corps and quick-fire guns
Added their fierce and incessant roar.
And from the crimson clouds his aerial ships
Hurl their cruel and deadly rain,
Shattering the foe in the lines below
And rending the stormswept plain.
A grand coup de main he had prepared—
A thousand electric motor cars,
With a hedge of spears on their outward shields
That flashed like countless silver stars;
Each with a quick-fire gun, and a score of men
Held with the reserves in the rear.
He sends with a rush all along the lines
Those intrepid souls without fear.
Forward in line at intervals they sweep
With resistless hedge of steel,
And the writhing lines of the foe they reach—
See! see! they in wild horror reel
From the death rush of those wonderful cars
That cut them to pieces there,
And confusion enters those suffering lines,
And a wave of sullen despair.
And Wolseley seizes the fateful moment,
And rolls forward now the whole line—
Seven leagues! seven leagues of front!
Irresistible and sublime.
“All along their front let the cavalry charge!
Crush now their faltering powers!
Let the reserves sweep the foe from the field!
Complete this day of days, which is ours.”
And they swift unfold and sweep o’er the plain,
Resistlessly forward everywhere,
A fiery mass of heroic chivalry,
So glorious and so fair.
Like destroying angels they fall on the foe,
Rending, destroying all amain,
And they reel back in despair, still struggling there,
But ever and ever in vain.
And the cavalry charged in mighty mass,
And the earth rocked beneath their tread,
And they shore whole lines into mere fragments,
And the fragments in terror fled.