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 hop-fields 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 grey 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 frames; 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.
Doyle.
[XCVII]
THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR
Eleven men of England A breastwork charged in vain; Eleven men of England Lie stripped, and gashed, and slain. Slain; but of foes that guarded Their rock-built fortress well, Some twenty had been mastered, When the last soldier fell.
Whilst Napier piloted his wondrous way Across the sand-waves of the desert sea, Then flashed at once, on each fierce clan, dismay, Lord of their wild Truckee. These missed the glen to which their steps were bent, Mistook a mandate, from afar half heard, And, in that glorious error, calmly went To death without a word.
The robber-chief mused deeply Above those daring dead; ‘Bring here,’ at length he shouted, ‘Bring quick, the battle thread. Let Eblis blast for ever Their souls, if Allah will: But we must keep unbroken The old rules of the Hill.
Before the Ghiznee tiger Leapt forth to burn and slay; Before the holy Prophet Taught our grim tribes to pray; Before Secunder's lances Pierced through each Indian glen; The mountain laws of honour Were framed for fearless men.