L'ENVOI.
Just a word of explanation, it may save us from a quarrel,
I have really no intention—'twould be shameful if I had,
Of preaching you a blatant, democratic kind of moral;
For the "swell, you know," the D'Arcy, fought as bravely as the
"cad!"
Yet I own that sometimes thinking how a courteous decoration
May be won by shabby service or disreputable dodge,
I regard with more than pleasure—with a sense of consolation—
The Victoria Cross "For Valour" on the breast of Sammy Hodge!
THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.
(October 25, 1857.)
BY R.T.S. LOWELL.
Oh! that last day in Lucknow fort!
We knew that it was the last:
That the enemy's mines had crept surely in,
And the end was coming fast.
To yield to that foe meant worse than death;
And the men and we all work'd on:
It was one day more, of smoke and roar,
And then it would all be done.
There was one of us, a corporal's wife,
A fair young gentle thing,
Wasted with fever in the siege,
And her mind was wandering.
She lay on the ground in her Scottish plaid,
And I took her head on my knee:
"When my father comes hame frae the pleugh," she said,
"Oh! please then waken me."