MONTEREY

[SEPTEMBER 23, 1846]

WE were not many, we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day:
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if but he could

Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot it hailed

In deadly drifts of fiery spray,

Yet not a single soldier quailed

When wounded comrades round them wailed

Their dying shout at Monterey.

And on-still on our column kept

Through walls of flame its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stepped,
Still charging on the guns which swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.

The foe himself recoiled aghast,

When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey.

Our banners on those turrets wave,
And there our evening bugles play:
Where orange-boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.

We are not many-we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day-

But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey?

Charles Fenno Hoffman [1806-1884]

PESCHIERA

[MAY, 1848]

WHAT voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crossed?
"Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all."
The tricolor-a trampled rag
Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track
By sentry boxes, yellow-black,
Lead up to no Italian flag.

I see the Croat soldier stand
Upon the grass of your redoubts;
The eagle with his black wing flouts
The breath and beauty of your land.

Yet not in vain, although in vain,
O men of Brescia, on the day
Of loss past hope, I heard you say
Your welcome to the noble pain.

You said: "Since so it is, good-bye,
Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe'er
May be, or must, no tongue shall dare
To tell, 'The Lombard feared to die!""

You said (there shall be answer fit):
"And if our children must obey,
They must; but, thinking on this day,
'Twill less debase them to submit."

You said (O not in vain you said):
"Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may;
The hours ebb fast of this one day,
While blood may yet be nobly shed."

Ah! not for idle hatred, not
For honor, fame, nor self-applause,
But for the glory of the cause,

You did, what will not be forgot.

And though the stranger stand, 'tis true,
By force and fortune's right he stands:
By fortune, which is in God's hands,
And strength, which yet shall spring in you.

This voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crossed:
"Tis better to have fought and lost,

Than never to have fought at all."

Arthur Hugh Clough [1819-1861]

THE LOSS OF THE BIRKENHEAD

SUPPOSED TO BE TOLD BY A SOLDIER WHO SURVIVED

[FEBRUARY 26, 1852]

RIGHT on our flank the crimson sun went down;
The deep sea rolled around in dark repose;
When, like the wild shriek from some captured town,

A cry of women rose.

The stout ship Birkenhead lay hard and fast,

Caught without hope upon a hidden rock;

Her timbers thrilled as nerves, when through them passed

The spirit of that shock.

And ever like base cowards, who leave their ranks
In danger's hour, before the rush of steel,

Drifted away disorderly the planks

From underneath her keel.

So calm the air, so calm and still the flood,
That low down in its blue translucent glass
We saw the great fierce fish, that thirst for blood,
Pass slowly, then

repass.

They tarried, the waves tarried, for their prey!

The sea turned one clear smile! Like things asleep
Those dark shapes in the azure silence lay,

As quiet as the deep.

Then amidst oath, and prayer, and rush, and wreck,
Faint screams, faint questions waiting no reply,
Our Colonel gave the word, and on the deck
Formed us in line to die.

To die!-'twas hard, whilst the sleek ocean glowed
Beneath a sky as fair as summer flowers:-
All to the boats! cried one:-he was, thank God,
No officer of ours!

Our English hearts beat true:-we would not stir:
That base appeal we heard, but heeded not:
On land, on sea, we had our Colors, sir,

To keep without a spot!

They shall not say in England, that we fought
With shameful strength, unhonored life to seek;
Into mean safety, mean deserters, brought
By trampling down the weak.

So we made women with their children go,
The oars ply back again, and yet again;

Whilst, inch by inch, the drowning ship sank low,
Still under steadfast men.

-What follows, why recall?-The brave who died, Died without flinching in the bloody surf,

They sleep as well beneath that purple tide,

As others under turf:

They sleep as well! and, roused from their wild grave, Wearing their wounds like stars, shall rise again, Joint-heirs with Christ, because they bled to save His weak ones, not in vain.

Francis Hastings Doyle [1810-1888]

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

[BALACLAVA, OCTOBER 25, 1852]

HALF a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while

All the world wondered: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre-stroke,

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not,

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them