Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit, | Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet name, my horse with out peer, Clapped my hands, laughed and sung, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. And all I remember is, friends flocking round, So Joris broke silence with "Yet there is time!" As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the And one eye's black intelligence, glance O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ; And the thick heavy spume-flakes, which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on. By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her; We'll remember at Aix," for one heard the quick wheeze ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. ROBERT BROWNING. THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. O, THAT last day in Lucknow fort! To yield to that foe meant worse than death; And the men and we all worked 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, Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and stag- Wasted with fever in the siege, gering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. So we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh; 'Neath our feet broke the brittle, bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!" 66 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! then please wauken me." She slept like a child on her father's floor, 'How they'll greet us!"- and all in a mo- It was smoke and roar and powder-stench, ment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight And hopeless waiting for death; And the soldier's wife, like a full-tired child, Seemed scarce to draw her breath. Of the news which alone could save Aix from I sank to sleep; and I had my dream her fate, With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. Of an English village-lane, And wall and garden ;—but one wild scream Brought me back to the roar again. HUDIBRAS' SWORD AND DAGGER. His puissant sword unto his side Of somebody to hew and hack. This sword a dagger had, his page, With many holiday and lady terms I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, He should, or he should not; for he made me mad Of guns, and drums, and wounds, — God save the mark! And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth ["Some Seiks, and a private of the Buffs, having remained behind with the grog-carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next form Kotou. The Seiks obeyed, but Moyse, the English soldier, day they were brought before the authorities and ordered to per declared he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, and was immediately knocked upon the head, and his body thrown upon a dunghill." —China Correspondent of the "London Times." LAST night, among his fellow roughs, He jested, quaffed, and swore; To-day, beneath the foeman's frown, Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, Bewildered, and alone, A heart, with English instinct fraught, Ay, tear his body limb from limb, He only knows that not through him Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed, Yes, honor calls!-with strength like steel He put the vision by; • "The Buffs" are the East Kent regiment. "But, hark! the far bugles their warnings unite; | That's what the brier-wood said, as nigh as my War is a virtue, weakness a sin; tongue can tell, There's a lurking and loping around us to-night; And the words went straight to my heart, like Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in!' CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY. THE BRIER-WOOD PIPE. HA! bully for me again, when my turn for picket is over, And now for a smoke as I lie, with the moonlight, out in the clover. the stroke of the fire-bell. To-night I lie in the clover, watching the blossomy smoke; I'm glad the boys are asleep, for I ain't in the humor to joke. I lie in the hefty clover: up between me and the moon The smoke from my pipe arises: my heart will be quiet, soon. My pipe, it's only a knot from the root of a brier- My thoughts are back in the city, I'm everywood tree, thing I've been; But it turns my heart to the Northward - Harry I hear the bell from the tower, I run with the gave it to me. swift machine, And I'm but a rough at best, bred up to the I see the red shirts crowding around the enginerow and the riot; house door, But a softness comes over my heart, when all are The foreman's hail through the trumpet comes asleep and quiet. with a hollow roar. For, many a time, in the night, strange things The reel in the Bowery dance-house, the row in appear to my eye, the beer-saloon, As the breath from my brier-wood pipe curls up Where I put in my licks at Big Paul, come bebetween me and the sky. Last night a beautiful spirit arose with the wisping smoke; O, I shook, but my heart felt good, as it spread out its hands and spoke ; tween me and the moon. I hear the drum and the bugle, the tramp of the cow-skin boots, We are marching on our muscle, the Fire-Zouave recruits! Saying, "I am the soul of the brier; we grew White handkerchiefs wave before me―0, but at the root of a tree the sight is pretty Where lovers would come in the twilight, two On the white marble steps, as we march through ever, for company. the heart of the city. "Where lovers would come in the morning- Bright eyes and clasping arms, and lips that ever but two, together; bade us good hap; When the flowers were full in their blow; the And the splendid lady who gave me the havelock birds, in their song and feather. for my cap. "Where lovers would come in the noon-tide, O, up from my pipe-cloud rises, there between loitering- never but two, me and the moon, Looking in each other's eyes, like pigeons that A beautiful white-robed lady; my heart will be kiss and coo. quiet, soon. "And O, the honeyed words that came when The lovely golden-haired lady ever in dreams I the lips were parted, see, And the passion that glowed in the eyes, and the Who gave me the snow-white havelock - but lightning looks that darted! what does she care for me? "Enough: Love dwells in the pipe - - so ever it glows with fire! Look at my grimy features; mountains between us stand: I am the soul of the bush, and the spirits call I with my sledge-hammer knuckles, she with her me Sweet Brier." jeweled hand! |