Swore the franchise should not be;
Like rolling thunder rose our cheers—
Grand Old Man, success to thee!
ALFRED C. BRANT.
The Weekly Dispatch, September 14, 1884.
(Parody Competition).
"The Charge of the Light Brigade" is still one of the most popular of Tennyson's poems, in spite of its many faults, and defective construction. Some of its lines are, indeed, ridiculous, whilst many are ungrammatical, but the metre is pleasing, and the words have the ring of the battle about them. Tennyson, however, can claim no credit for these merits, having boldly appropriated them from Michael Drayton's poem on the Battle of Agincourt, in which the following lines occur:—
"They now to fight are gone,
Armour on armour shone:
Drum now to drum did groan;