Patient of pain tho’ as quick as a sensitive plant to the touch.
Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often moved me to tears,
Hers was the gratefullest heart I have found in a child of her years —
Nay you remember our Emmie; you used to send her the flowers.
How she would smile at ‘em, play with ‘em, talk to ‘em hours after hours!
They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are reveal’d
Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the field;
Flowers to these ‘spirits in prison’ are all they can know of the spring,
They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft of an angel’s wing.
And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin hands crost on her breast —
Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and we thought her at rest,
Quietly sleeping — so quiet, our doctor said, 145;Poor little dear,
Nurse, I must do it to-morrow; she’ll never live thro’ it, I fear.’
V.
I walk’d with our kindly old doctor as far as the head of the stair,
Then I return’d to the ward; the child didn’t see I was there.
VI.
Never since I was nurse had I been so grieved and so vext!
Emmie had heard him. Softly she call’d from her cot to the next,
‘He says I shall never live thro’ it;
O Annie, what shall I do?’ Annie consider’d.
‘If I,’ said the wise little Annie, ‘was you,
I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, Emmie, you see,
It’s all in the picture there: “Little children should come to me”’ —
Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it always can please
Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children about his knees.
‘Yes, and I will,’ said Emmie, ‘but then if I call to the Lord,
How should he know that it’s me? such a lot of beds in the ward!’
That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she consider’d and said:
‘Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave ‘em outside on the bed —
The Lord has so much to see to! but, Emmie, you tell it him plain,
It’s the little girl with her arms lying out on the counterpane.’
VII.
I had sat three nights by the child — I could not watch her for four —
My brain had begun to reel — I felt I could do it no more.
That was my sleeping-night, but I thought that it never would pass.
There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the glass,
And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tost about,
The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness without;
My sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful knife
And fears for our delicate Emmie who scarce would escape with her life;
Then in the gray of the morning it seem’d she stood by me and smiled,
And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see to the child.
VIII.
He had brought his ghastly tools; we believed her asleep again —
Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the counterpane —
Say that His day is done! Ah, why should we care what they say?
The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie had past away.
Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice
1879
DEAD Princess, living Power, if that which lived
True life live on — and if the fatal kiss,
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not
From earthly love and life — if what we call
The spirit flash not all at once from out
This shadow into Substance — then perhaps
The mellow’d murmur of the people’s praise
From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm,
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light,
Ascends to thee; and this March morn that sees
Thy Soldier-brother’s bridal orange-bloom
Break thro’ the yews and cypress of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,
May send one ray to thee! and who can tell —
Thou — England’s England-loving daughter — thou
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag
Borne on thy coffin — where is he can swear
But that some broken gleam from our poor earth
May touch thee, while, remembering thee, I lay
At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds
Of England, and her banner in the East?
The Defence of Lucknow
I.
BANNER of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast thou
Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle-cry!
Never with mightier glory than when we had rear’d thee on high
Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Lucknow —
Shot thro’ the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised thee anew,
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
II.
Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our lives —
Women and children among us, God help them, our children and wives!
Hold it we might — and for fifteen days or for twenty at most.
‘Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!’
Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the best of the brave:
Cold were his brows when we kiss’d him — we laid him that night in his grave.
‘Every man die at his post!’ and there hail’d on our houses and halls
Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-balls,
Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight barricade,
Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stoopt to the spade,
Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell,
Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro’ it, their shot and their shell,
Death — for their spies were among us, their marksmen were told of our best,
So that the brute bullet broke thro’ the brain that could think for the rest;
Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet —
Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled us round —
Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a street,
Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in the ground!
Mine? yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! and creep thro’ the hole!
Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him — the murderous mole!
Quiet, ah! quiet — wait till the point of the pickaxe be thro’!
Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again than before —
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew!
III.
Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day
Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap echo ‘d away,
Dark thro’ the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hell —
Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell —
Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell.
What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan!
Storm at the Water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm, and it ran
Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side
Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily devour’d by the tide —
So many thousands that if they be bold enough, who shall escape?
Kill or be kill’d, liv
e or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men
Ready! take aim at their leaders — their masses are gapp’d with our grape —
Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward again,
Flying and foil’d at the last by the handful they could not subdue;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
IV.
Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb,
Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure,
Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him;
Still — could we watch at all points? we were every day fewer and fewer.
There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that past
‘Children and wives — if the tigers leap into the fold unawares —
Every man die at his post — and the foe may outlive us at last —
Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into theirs!’
Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy sprung
Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades.
Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true!
Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusillades —
Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung,
Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand-grenades;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
V.
Then on another wild morning another wild earthquake out-tore
Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good paces or more.
Rifleman, high on the roof, hidden there from the light of the sun —
One has leapt up on the breach, crying out: ‘Follow me, follow me!’ —
Mark him — he falls! then another, and him too, and down goes he.
Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the traitors had won?
Boardings and rafters and doors — an embrasure I make way for the gun!
Now double-charge it with grape! It is charged and we fire, and they run.
Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his due!
Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and few,
Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them, and slew,
That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India blew.
VI.
Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight!
But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all thro’ the night —
Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms,
Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms,
Ever the labour of fifty that had to be done by five,
Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive,
Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes around,
Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground,
Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies,
Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies.
Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field,
Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be heal’d,
Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful-pitiless knife, —
Torture and trouble in vain, — for it never could save us a life.
Valour of delicate women who tended the hospital bed,
Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead,
Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief,
Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief,
Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butcher’d for all that we knew —
Then day and night, day and night, coming down on the still-shatter’d walls
Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon-balls —
But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
VII.
Hark cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout,
Outram and Havelock breaking their way through the fell mutineers?
Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears!
All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout,
Havelock’s glorious Highlanders answer with conquering cheers,
Sick from the hospital echo them, women and children come out,
Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock’s good fusileers,
Kissing the war-harden’d hand of the Highlander wet with their tears!
Dance to the pibroch! — saved! we are saved! — is it you? is it you?
Saved by the valour of Havelock, saved by the blessing of Heaven!
‘Hold it for fifteen days!’ we have held it for eighty-seven!
And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew.
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham
(In Wales.)
MY FRIEND should meet me somewhere hereabout
To take me to that hiding in the hills.
I have broke their cage, no gilded one, I trow —
I read no more the prisoner’s mute wail
Scribbled or carved upon the pitiless stone;
I find hard rocks, hard life, hard cheer, or none,
For I am emptier than a friar’s brains;
But God is with me in this wilderness,
These wet black passes and foam-churning chasms —
And God’s free air, and hope of better things.
I would I knew their speech; not now to glean,
Not now — I hope to do it — some scatter’d ears,
Some ears for Christ in this wild field of Wales —
But, bread, merely for bread. This tongue that wagg’d
They said with such heretical arrogance
Against the proud archbishop Arundel —
So much God’s cause was fluent in it — is here
But as a Latin Bible to the crowd;
‘Bara!’ — what use? The Shepherd, when I speak,
Vailing a sudden eyelid with his hard
‘Dim Saesneg’ passes, wroth at things of old —
No fault of mine. Had he God’s word in Welsh
He might be kindlier: happily come the day!
Not least art thou, thou little Bethlehem
In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born;
Nor thou in Britain, little Lutterworth,
Least, for in thee the word was born again.
Heaven-sweet Evangel, ever-living word,
Who whilome spakest to the South in Greek
About the soft Mediterranean shores,
And then in Latin to the Latin crowd,
As good need was — thou hast come to talk our isle.
Hereafter thou, fulfilling Pentecost,
Must learn to use the tongues of all the world.
Yet art thou thine own witness that thou bringest
Not peace, a sword, a fire.
What did he say,
My frighted Wiclif-preacher whom I crost
In flying hither? that one night a crowd
Throng’d the waste field about the city gates:
The king was on them suddenly with a host.
Why there? they came to hear their preacher. Then
Some cried on Cobham, on the good Lord Cobham;
Ay, for they love me! but the king — nor voice
Nor finger raised against him — took and hang’d,
Took, hang’d and burnt — how many — thirty-nine —
Call’d it rebellion — hang’d, poor friends, as rebels
And burn’d alive as heretics! for your Priest
Labels — to take the king along with him —
All heresy, treason: but to call men traitors
May make men trait
ors.
Rose of Lancaster,
Red in thy birth, redder with household war,
Now reddest with the blood of holy men,
Redder to be, red rose of Lancaster —
If somewhere in the North, as Rumour sang
Fluttering the hawks of this crown-lusting line —
By firth and loch thy silver sister grow,1
That were my rose, there my allegiance due.
Self-starved, they say — nay, murder’d, doubtless dead.
So to this king I cleaved: my friend was he,
Once my fast friend: I would have given my life
To help his own from scathe, a thousand lives
To save his soul. He might have come to learn
Our Wiclif’s learning: but the worldly Priests
Who fear the king’s hard common-sense should find
What rotten piles uphold their mason-work,
Urge him to foreign war. O had he will’d
I might have stricken a lusty stroke for him,
But he would not; far liever led my friend
Back to the pure and universal church,
But he would not: whether that heirless flaw
In his throne’s title make him feel so frail,
He leans on Antichrist; or that his mind,
So quick, so capable in soldiership,
In matters of the faith, alas the while!
More worth than all the kingdoms of this world,
Runs in the rut, a coward to the Priest.
Burnt — good Sir Roger Acton, my dear friend!
Burnt too, my faithful preacher, Beverley!
Lord give thou power to thy two witnesses!
Lest the false faith make merry over them
Two — nay but thirty-nine have risen and stand,
Dark with the smoke of human sacrifice,
Before thy light, and cry continually —
Cry — against whom?
Him, who should bear the sword
Of Justice — what! the kingly, kindly boy;
Who took the world so easily heretofore,
My boon companion, tavern-fellow — him
Who gibed and japed — in many a merry tale
That shook our sides — at Pardoners, Summoners,
Friars, absolution-sellers, monkeries
And nunneries, when the wild hour and the wine
Had set the wits aflame.
Harry of Monmouth,
Or Amurath of the East?
Better to sink
Thy fleurs-de-lys in slime again, and fling
Thy royalty back into the riotous fits
Of wine and harlotry — thy shame, and mine,
Thy comrade — than to persecute the Lord,
Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series Page 114