While yet, beset in homelier fray, They learn from you the lesson plain That Life may go, so Honor stay,—

The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

ENVOY

Heroes of old! I humbly lay

The laurel on your graves again; Whatever men have done, men may,

The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

Austin Dobson [1840

THE CAPTAIN'S FEATHER

THE dew is on the heather,
The moon is in the sky,
And the captain's waving feather
Proclaims the hour is nigh
When some upon their horses
Shall through the battle ride,
And some with bleeding corses
Must on the heather bide.

The dust is on the heather,
The moon is in the sky,
And about the captain's feather
The bolts of battle fly;
But hark, what sudden wonder
Breaks forth upon the gloom?

It is the cannon's thunder-
It is the voice of doom!

The blood is on the heather,
The night is in the sky,
And the gallant captain's feather
Shall wave no more on high;
The grave and holy brother
To God is saying Mass,
But who shall tell his mother,
And who shall tell his lass?

Samuel Minturn Peck [1854

ENGLAND'S DEAD

SON of the ocean isle!

Where sleep your mighty dead? Show me what high and stately pile Is reared o'er Glory's bed.

Go, stranger! track the deep, Free, free, the white sail spread! Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep, Where rest not England's dead.

On Egypt's burning plains,

By the pyramid o'erswayed,

With fearful power the noonday reigns,

And the palm-trees yield no shade.

But let the angry sun

From heaven look fiercely red,

Unfelt by those whose task is done,—
There slumber England's dead.

The hurricane hath might

Along the Indian shore,

And far, by Ganges' banks at night
Is heard the tiger's roar.

But let the sound roll on!

It hath no tone of dread

For those that from their toils are gone;-
There slumber England's dead!

Loud rush the torrent-floods
The western wilds among,

And free, in green Columbia's woods
The hunter's bow is strung.

But let the floods rush on!

Let the arrow's flight be sped!

Why should they reck whose task is done?— There slumber England's dead!

The mountain-storms rise high

In the snowy Pyrenees,

And toss the pine-boughs through the sky,

Like rose-leaves on the breeze.

But let the storm rage on!

Let the forest-wreaths be shed:
For the Roncesvalles' field is won,—
There slumber England's dead.

On the frozen deep's repose,
'Tis a dark and dreadful hour,
When round the ship the ice-fields close,
To chain her with their power.

But let the ice drift on!

Let the cold-blue desert spread!

Their course with mast and flag is done,—
Even there sleep England's dead.

The warlike of the isles,

The men of field and wave!

Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shores their grave?

Go, stranger! track the deep,

Free, free the white sail spread!

Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,

Where rest not England's dead.

Felicia Dorothea Hemans [1793-1835]

THE PIPES O' GORDON'S MEN

HOME comes a lad with the bonnie hair,

And the kilted plaid that the hill-clans wear;

And you hear the mother say,

"Whear ha' ye ben, wee Laddie; whear ha' ye ben th' day?"

"O! I ha' ben wi' Gordon's men;

Dinna ye hear th' bagpipes play?

And I followed th' soldiers across the green,

And doon th' road ta Aberdeen.

And when I'm a man, my Mother,

And th' Hielanders parade,

I'll be marchin' there, wi' my Father's pipes,
And I'll wear th' red cockade."

Beneath the Soudan's sky ye ken the smoke,

As the clans reply when the tribesmen spoke.

Then the charge roars by!

The death-sweat clings to the kilted form that the stretcher brings,

And the iron-nerved surgeons say,

"Whear ha' ye ben, my Laddie; whear ha' ye ben th' day?"

"O, I ha' ben wi' Gordon's men;

Dinna ye hear th' bagpipes play?

And I piped th' clans from the river barge

Across the sands, and through the charge.
And I skirled-th' pibroch-keen-an' high,

But th' pipes-ben broke―an' -my-lips-ben-dry.”

CORONACH

Upon the hill-side, high and steep,

Where rank on rank the soldiers sleep,

Where the silent cannons beside the path,

Point the last forced-march that the soldier hath,—
Where the falling grave-grass has partly hid

The round-shot, heaped in a pyramid

A white stone rises. Across its face

You can read the words that the chisels trace:

"Whear ha' ye ben, wee Laddie; whear ha' ye ben th' day?"

"O, I ha' ben wi' Gordon's men;

Dinna ye hear th' bagpipes play?"

J. Scott Glasgow [18

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:-

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the Judgment Day:Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:-
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:-
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers,

Alike for the friend and the foe:-
Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the Judgment Day:

Under the roses, the Blue;

Under the lilies, the Gray.

So, with an equal splendor
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all:-
Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the Judgment Day:

Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain:-
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:-
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.