ARMS AND THE MAN

Thunder of riotous hoofs over the quaking sod; Clash of reeking squadrons, steel-capped, iron-shod; The White Maid and the white horse, and the flapping banner of God. Black hearts riding for money; red hearts riding for fame; The Maid who rides for France and the King who rides for shame— Gentlemen, fools, and a saint riding in Christ’s high name! “Dust to dust!” it is written. Wind-scattered are lance and bow. Dust, the Cross of Saint George; dust, the banner of snow. The bones of the King are crumbled, and rotted the shafts of the foe. Forgotten, the young knight’s valour; forgotten, the captain’s skill; Forgotten, the fear and the hate and the mailed hands raised to kill; Forgotten, the shields that clashed and the arrows that cried so shrill. Like a story from some old book, that battle of long ago: Shadows, the poor French King and the might of his English foe; Shadows, the charging nobles and the archers kneeling a-row— But a flame in my heart and my eyes, the Maid with her banner of snow!

There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it?—No; ’twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. But hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! Arm! it is—it is—the cannon’s opening roar! Within a window’d niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear That sound, the first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deem’d it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier, And rous’d the vengeance blood alone could quell: He rush’d into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness; And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne’er might be repeated: who would guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise! And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Rous’d up the soldier ere the morning star; While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering with white lips—“The foe! they come! they come!” And wild and high the “Camerons’ gathering” rose, The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years, And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears! And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,—alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day Battle’s magnificently stern array! The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent The earth is cover’d thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heap’d and pent, Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent!

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all except their sun is set. The Scian and the Teian[43] muse, The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse: Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your sires’ “Islands of the Blest.” The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea; And, musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persian’s grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis; And ships by thousands lay below, And men in nations;—all were his! He counted them at break of day, And when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now, The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? ’Tis something in the dearth of fame, Though linked among the fettered race, To feel at least a patriot’s shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear! Must we but weep o’er days more blest? Must we but blush? Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ! What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no: the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent’s fall, And answer, “Let one living head, But one arise,—we come, we come!” ’Tis but the living who are dumb. In vain—in vain; strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio’s vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call, How answers each bold Bacchanal! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet; Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave; Think ye he meant them for a slave? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! We will not think of themes like these! It made Anacreon’s song divine: He served—but served Polycrates: A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom’s best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! On Suli’s rock and Parga’s shore Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore; And there, perhaps, some seed is sown The Heracleidan blood might own. Trust not for freedom to the Franks— They have a king who buys and sells; In native swords and native ranks The only hope of courage dwells: But Turkish force and Latin fraud Would break your shield, however broad. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade— I see their glorious black eyes shine; But, gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves. Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep, Where nothing save the waves and I May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine— Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his Judgment Seat; O, be swift, my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more.

O for the voice of that wild horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne, The dying hero’s call, That told imperial Charlemagne How Paynim sons of swarthy Spain Had wrought his champion’s fall. Sad over earth and ocean sounding, And England’s distant cliffs astounding, Such are the notes should say How Britain’s hope, and France’s fear, Victor of Cressy and Poitier, In Bordeaux dying lay. “Raise my faint head, my squires,” he said, “And let the casement be displayed, That I may see once more The splendour of the setting sun Gleam on thy mirrored wave, Garonne, And Blay’s empurpled shore. “Like me, he sinks to Glory’s sleep, His fall the dews of evening steep, As if in sorrow shed. So soft shall fall the trickling tear, When England’s maids and matrons hear Of their Black Edward dead. “And though my sun of glory set, Nor France nor England shall forget The terror of my name; And oft shall Britain’s heroes rise, New planets in these southern skies, Through clouds of blood and flame.”

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O’er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning, By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light And the lantern dimly burning. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow. We thought, as we hollow’d his narrow bed And smooth’d down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head, And we far away on the billow! Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone, And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him— But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him. But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country’s wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking! Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking. In our isle’s enchanted hall, Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, Fairy strains of music fall, Every sense in slumber dewing. Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er, Dream of fighting fields no more; Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil, nor night of waking. No rude sound shall reach thine ear, Armour’s clang, or war-steed champing Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark’s shrill fife may come At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, Here’s no war-steed’s neigh and champing, Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping. Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done; While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not, with the rising sun, Bugles here shall sound reveillé. Sleep! the deer is in his den; Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying; Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen, How thy gallant steed lay dying. Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, Think not of the rising sun, For at dawning to assail ye, Here no bugles sound reveillé.