Wide, wide then to the skies
Your banner be unfurled!
Your patriot enterprise
Shall ring throughout the world.
Where Britain’s standard waves, each land
Shall hear of your heroic band.
Think of the widow’s wail,
Think of the orphan’s moan!
Think of each harrowing tale,
Altars and hearths o’erthrown!
The midnight prowl—the ambuscade—
The traveller’s homeward path waylaid!
And call to mind the cries,
Fervent and numberless,
That shall to Heaven arise
For safety and success.
Your country breathes one common prayer,
And makes your weal its special care.
And should it prove your lot
To fill a warrior’s grave,
That consecrated spot
Where sleeps “the fallen brave,”
Watered by grateful tears, shall be
Dear to your country’s memory.
Fathers, whose sons have bled!
Sons, who have lost your sires!
Brothers, for brothers dead,
Arouse your martial fires!
Pour swift destruction on the foe
That laid your slaughtered kinsmen low.
G. Impey.
Graham’s Town,
October 27th, 1851.
STORM IN TUGELA VALLEY, NATAL.
When once, at ev’ning’s mellow close,
The round moon lit the sky,
And all beneath in calm repose
In slumber rapt did lie—