Oh warriors, when you stain with gore,
If this indeed must be, the floor

Whereon that lady stept,

When the fierce joy of battle won
Hardens the heart of sire and son,
Remember that she wept.

W. Cory.

Alma

(1854)

HOUGH till now ungraced in story, scant although thy waters be,

Alma, roll those waters proudly, proudly roll them to the sea.

Yesterday unnamed, unhonoured, but to wandering Tartar known,

Now thou art a voice for ever, to the world's four corners blown.

In two nations' annals graven, thou art now a deathless

name,

And a star for ever shining in their firmament of fame.

Many a great and ancient river, crowned with city, tower, and shrine,

Little streamlet, knows no magic, boasts no potency like thine,

Cannot shed the light thou sheddest around many a living head,

Cannot lend the light thou lendest to the memories of the dead.

Yea, nor all unsoothed their sorrow, who can, proudly mourning, say

When the first strong burst of anguish shall have wept itself away

"He has past from us, the loved one; but he sleeps with them that died

By the Alma, at the winning of that terrible hill-side ".

Yes, and in the days far onward, when we all are cold as those,

Who beneath thy vines and willows on their hero-beds repose,

Thou on England's banners blazoned with the famous fields of old,

Shalt, where other fields are winning, wave above the brave and bold:

And our sons unborn shall nerve them for some great deed to be done,

By that twentieth of September, when the Alma's heights were won.

O thou river! dear for ever to the gallant, to the free, Alma, roll thy waters proudly, roll them proudly to the

sea.

R. C. Trench.

The Order of Valour

(1856)

HUS saith the Queen! "For him who gave
His life as nothing in the fight,-

So he from Russian wrong might save
My crown, my people and my right,—
Let there be made a cross of bronze

And grave thereon my queenly crest,
Write VALOUR on its haughty scroll
And hang it on his breast."

Thus saith the Land! "He who shall bear
Victoria's cross upon his breast,

In token that he did not fear

To die-had need been-for her rest;
For the dear sake of her who gives,
And the high deeds of him who wears,
Shall, high or low, all honour have
From all, through all his years."

Sir Edwin Arnold.

E travelled in the print of olden wars:
Yet all the land was green;

W

And love we found, and peace,

Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword

No more the sword they wield;

And O, how deep the corn

Along the battlefield!

R. L. Stevenson.

Echoes from History:

ii. Some Ideals of the Nineteenth Century