Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest The loving are the daring. BAYARD TAYLOR. THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. SEPTEMBER 25, 1857. OH, that last day in Lucknow fort! We knew that it was the last; To yield to that foe meant worse than death; There was one of us, a corporal's wife, Wasted with fever in the siege, And her mind was wandering. She lay on the ground, in her Scottish plaid, "When my father comes hame frae the pleugh," she said, "Oh! then please wauken me !" She slept like a child on her father's floor, In the flecking of woodbine shade, When the house-dog sprawls by the open door, And the mother's wheel is stayed. It was smoke and roar and powder-stench, And the soldier's wife, like a full-tired child, I sank to sleep; and I had my dream And wall and garden; a sudden scream Brought me back to the roar again. There Jessie Brown stood listening; And then a broad gladness broke "The Highlanders! oh, dinna ye hear? The slogan far awa'? The McGregor's? Ah! I ken it weel; It's the grandest o' them a'! "God bless thae bonny Highlanders ! Along the battery-line her cry Had fallen among the men; And they started, for they were there to die; Was life so near them, then? They listened for life; and the rattling fire Were all; and the colonel shook his head, And they turned to their guns once more. But Jessie said: "That slogan's dune; The Campbells are comin? It's no a dream; We heard the roar and the rattle afar, So the men plied their work of hopeless war, It was not long ere it must be heard, It was the pipes of the Highlanders ! And now they played Auld Lang Syne. It came to our men like the voice of God, And they shouted along the line. And they wept and shook one another's hand, That happy time when we welcomed them, Our men put Jessie first; And the general gave her his hand, and cheers From the men like a volley burst. And the pipers' ribbons and tartan streamed, ROBERT T. S. Lowell. Are there not many who remember (who can forget?) that scene in the Sikh War, when the distant gleam of arms and flash of friendly uniform was descried by a little exhausted army among the hills, and the Scotch pipes struck up, Oh! but ye were lang a-comin! The incident in the present case may not be historical, but it is true to nature, and intrinsically probable, which is all that poetry needs in that respect. |