His bannered millions meet;

While rock, and glen, and cave, and coast,
Shook with the war-cry of that host,
The thunder of their feet!

He heard the imperial echoes ring, -
He heard, and felt himself a king.

Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall plück
The eagle of the sea!

O, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave!
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave!
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms

The lightning and the gale!

O. W. Holmes.

CCXIX.

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

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,

Volleyed and thundered:

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well, Came through the jaws of death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.

Unmarked he stood among the throng,
In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face;
And, by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the bursting storm;
And, by the uplifting of his brow,

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

A. Tennyson

Swift to the breach his comrades fly :
"Make way for liberty!" they cry,
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart;
While, instantaneous as his fall,

Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all:

An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.