THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.1

1809.

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 sod 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 nor 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 that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!

1 The burial of the English general, Sir John Moore, was an incident of Wellington's campaign against Napoleon in Spain. Sir John was killed at Corunna in 1809. He was buried on the ramparts of the city.

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 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 in his glory!

CHARLES WOLFE.

THE CUMBERLAND.1

March 8, 1862.

AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarum of drums swept past,

Or a bugle blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose

A little feather of snow-white smoke,

And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
Was steadily steering its course

To try the force

Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,

Silent and sullen, the floating fort;

Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,
And leaps the terrible death,

With fiery breath,

From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straight

Defiance back in a full broadside!

1 The Cumberland: during the American Civil War, the Merrimac, an iron-clad Confederate gunboat, attacked and crushed in the side of the Union frigate Cumberland at Hampton Roads, Va.

The Cumberland speedily sunk, carrying down all the sick and wounded, or one hundred and twenty-one in all.

As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
Rebounds our heavier hail

From each iron scale.

Of the monster's hide.

"Strike your flag!" the Rebel cries,
In his arrogant old plantation strain.
"Never!" our gallant Morris 1 replies;

"It is better to sink than to yield!"
And the whole air pealed

With the cheers of our men.

Then, like a kraken 2 huge and black,

She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp !
Down went the Cumberland all a wreck,
With a sudden shudder of death,

And the cannon's breath

For her dying gasp.

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,

Still floated our flag at the main mast-head.
Lord, how beautiful was thy day!

Every waft of the air

Was a whisper of prayer,

Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream;
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,

Thy flag, that is rent in twain,

Shall be one again,

And without a seam!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

1 Lieutenant George Upham Morris, commander of the Cumberland.

2 Kraken a terrible sea-monster said to have been seen off the coast of Norway.

THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS.1

Last night, among his fellow-roughs,
He jested, quaffed, and swore;
A drunken private of the Buffs,2
Who never looked before.
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown,
He stands in Elgin's place,3
Ambassador from Britain's crown,
And type of all her race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered, and alone,

A heart with English instinct fraught
He yet can call his own.
Aye, tear his body limb from limb,

Bring cord, or axe, or flame;

He only knows, that not through him
Shall England come to shame.

1 During the English war with China in 1858 a private of the Buffs with some Indian troops fell into the hands of the Chinese. They were ordered to salute the authorities in the Chinese fashion by prostrating themselves and touching the ground with the forehead. The Indians obeyed, but the English soldier swore that he would not prostrate himself to any Chinaman living. He was knocked on the head and his body cast out on a dung-hill.

2 Buffs: a regiment from Kent, England, so called because the facings of their uniforms are of buff or light yellow color.

3 He stands like Lord Elgin (g hard); a representative of England's manliness and courage.