The Frenchmen turned like a covey down the wind

When Hawke came swooping from the West; One he sank with all hands, one he caught and pinned, And the shallows and the storm took the rest.

The guns that should have conquered us they rusted on the shore,

The men that would have mastered us they drummed and marched no more,

For England was England, and a mighty brood she bore When Hawke came swooping from the West.

HENRY NEWBOLT

THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS

LAST night, among his fellow roughs,

He jested, quaffed, and swore;

A drunken private of the Buffs,
Who never looked before.

To-day, beneath the foeman's frown,
He stands in Elgin's place,
Ambassador from Britain's crown
And type of all her race.

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 gray soft eddyings hung:
Must he then watch it rise no more,
Doomed by himself, so young?

Yes, honor 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 framed;
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.

SIR FRANCIS H. DOYLE

KILLED AT THE FORD

HE is dead, the beautiful youth,

The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,

Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call,

Whom all eyes followed with one consent,

The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word, Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old song:
'Two red roses he had on his cap

And another he bore at the point of his sword.'

Sudden and swift a whistling ball

Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill;
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room where some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him up to his saddle again,
And through the mire and the mist and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,
And laid him as if asleep on his bed;

And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp Two white roses upon his cheeks,

And one, just over his heart, blood-red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat
Without a murmur, without a cry;
And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,
For one who had passed from cross to crown,
And the neighbors wondered that she should die.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER

CLOSE his eyes: his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,

Rise of moon, or set of sun,

Hand of man, or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know:
Lay him low!

As man may, he fought his fight,

Proved his truth by his endeavor;

Let him sleep in solemn night,
Sleep forever and forever;

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know:
Lay him low!

Fold him in his country's stars,
Roll the drum and fire the volley!
What to him are all our wars,
What but death bemocking folly?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know
Lay him low!

Leave him to God's watching eye,

Trust him to the Hand that made him.

Mortal love weeps idly by;

God alone has power to aid him.

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know:

Lay him low!

GEORGE HENRY BOKER