‘On with the charge!’ he cries, and waves his sword;—
One rolling cheer five thousand voices swell;—
The levelled guns pour forth their leaden shower,
While thund’ring cannons’ roar half drowns the Huron yell.
‘On with the charge!’ with shout and cheer they come;—
No laggard there upon that field of fame.
The lurid plain gleams like a seething hell,
And every rock and tree send forth their bolts of flame.
On! on! they sweep. Uprise the waiting ranks—
Still as the grave—unmoved as granite wall;—
The foe before—the dizzy crags behind—
They fight, the day to win, or like true warriors fall.
Forward they sternly move, then halt to wait
That raging sea of human life now near;—
‘Fire!’ rings from right to left,—each musket rings,
As if a thunder-peal had struck the startled ear.
Again, and yet again that volley flies,—
With deadly aim the grapeshot sweeps the field;—
All levelled for the charge, the bayonets gleam,
And brawny arms a thousand claymores fiercely wield.
And down the line swells high the British cheer,
That on a future day woke Minden’s plain,
And the loud slogan that fair Scotland’s foes
Have often heard with dread, and oft shall hear again.
And the shrill pipe its coronach that wailed
On dark Culloden moor o’er trampled dead,
Now sounds the ‘Onset’ that each clansman knows,
Still leads the foremost rank, where noblest blood is shed.
And on that day no nobler stained the sod,
Than his, who for his country life laid down;
Who, for a mighty Empire battled there,
And strove from rival’s brow to wrest the laurel crown.
Twice struck,—he recks not, but still heads the charge,
But, ah! fate guides the marksman’s fatal ball:—
With bleeding breast, he claims a comrade’s aid,—
‘We win,—let not my soldiers see their Leader fall.’
Full well he feels life’s tide is ebbing fast,—
When hark! ‘They run; see how they run!’ they cry.
‘Who run?’ ‘The foe.’ His eyes flash forth one gleam,
Then murm’ring low he sighs, ‘Praise God, in peace I die.’
Far rolls the battle’s din, and leaves its dead,
As when a cyclone thro’ the forest cleaves;—
And the dread claymore heaps the path with slain,
As strews the biting cold the earth with autumn leaves.
The Fleur de Lys lies trodden on the ground,—
The slain Montcalm rests in his warrior grave,—
‘All’s well’ resounds from tower and battlement,
And England’s banners proudly o’er the ramparts wave.
Slowly the mighty warships sail away,
To tell their country of an empire won;
But, ah! they bear the death-roll of the slain,
And all that mortal is of Britain’s noblest son.
With bowÈd head they lay their hero down,
And pomp and pageant crown the deathless brave;—
Loud salvoes sing the soldier’s lullaby,
And weeping millions bathe with tears his honoured grave.
Then bright the bonfires blaze on Albion’s hills,—
And rends the very sky a people’s joy;—
And even when grief broods o’er the vacant chair,
The mother’s heart still nobly gives her gallant boy.
And while broad England gleams with glorious light,
And merry peals from every belfry ring;—
One little village lies all dark and still,
No fires are lighted there—no battle songs they sing.
There in her lonely cot, in widow’s weeds,
A mother mourns—the silent tear-drops fall;—
She too had given to swell proud England’s fame,
But, ah! she gave the widow’s mite—she gave her all!
Duncan Anderson.
