At our work do any wonder, saying, "Frenchmen love the fair?" Such "fair?" Ha! ha! they blunder who thus twit us! Vive la Guerre! What's that, so tall and meagre -Nay, bold Frenchmen, do not shrink! 'Tis a corpse, with features eager jammed for air into a chink. Whence is that hysteric sobbing?—nay, bold Frenchmen, do not draw! "Tis an Arab's parched throat throbbing. Frenchmen love sweet mercy's law; Make way there! Give him breathing! How he smiles to feel the air! His breath seems incense wreathing to sweet Mercy! Vive la Guerre! And now, to crown our glory, get we trophies to display can Blistered blade with Arab mottoes, spear head, bloody yata ghan. Give room now to the raven and the dog, who scent rich fare; And let these words be graven on the rock side-" Vive la Guerre!" The trumpet sounds for marching! on, alike amid sweet meads, Morass, or desert parching, wheresoe'er our captain leads! Cry "Conquer, kill, and ravage!" Never ask, "Who, what, or where?" If civilized or savage, never heed, but-Vive la Guerre. XVII.-CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. (ALFRED TENNYSON.) For explanation see Prose Extracts, p. 29. Alfred Tennyson was born at his father's parsonage in Lincolnshire, in 1810. lle was appointed Poet Laureate on the death of Wordsworth (86) HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of death "Forward the Light Brigade! "Forward the Light Brigade!" Theirs but to do and die; Cannon to right 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, XVIII.-SCENE BEFORE THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. (BYRON.) Corinth, a city famous in ancient times, is situated on the Gulf of Lepanto. The citadel is noted for its great height above the plain. The siege spoken of in the poem took place in 1715 A.D. THE night is past, and shines the sun Hark to the trump and the drum, And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn, And the flap of the banners that flit as they're borne, Alp at their head; his right arm is bare, The Khan and the Pachas are all at their post; A priest at her altars-a chief in her halls- Up to the skies with that wild halloo !” On the stately buffalo, Though with fiery eyes and angry roar, And hoofs that stamp and horns that gore, He tramples on earth, or tosses on high The foremost who rush on his strength but to die : Thus against the wall they went, Thus the first were backward bent: Even as they fell, in files they lay, Like the mower's grass at the close of day, When his work is done on the levelled plain, Such was the fall of the foremost slain. As the spring-tides with heavy plash, Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow, Like the avalanche's snow On the Alpine vales below Thus at length, out-breathed and worn, Charge of the Moslem multitude. In firmness they stood and in masses they fell, Hand to hand and foot to foot: From the point of encountering blade to the hilt But the rampart is won—and the spoil begun— That splash in the blood of the slippery street! XIX.-SCENE AFTER THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. (BYRON.) ALP wandered on along the beach, Till within the range of a carbine's reach Of the leaguered wall; but they saw him not, Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold? Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts waxed cold! I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall There flashed no fire and there hissed no ball, Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown That flanked the sea-ward gate of the town; Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell The sullen words of the sentinel, As his measured step on the stone below Clanked, as he paced it to and fro ; |