the heavy cannons peal.
In the van rides Captain Nolan;?Soldier stout he was and brave!?And his shining sabre flashes,?As upon the foe he dashes:?God! his face turns white as ashes,?He has ridden to his grave!
Down he fell, prone from his saddle,?Without motion, without breath,?Never more a trump to waken--?He the very first one taken,?From the bough so sorely shaken,?In the vintage-time of Death.
In a moment, in a twinkling,?He was gathered to his rest;?In the time for which he'd waited--?With his gallant heart elated--?Down went Nolan, decorated?With a death wound on his breast.
Comrades still are onward charging,?He is lying on the sod:?Onward still their steeds are rushing?Where the shot and shell are crushing;?From his corpse the blood is gushing,?And his soul is with his God.
As they spur on, what strange visions?Flit across each rider's brain!?Thoughts of maidens fair, of mothers,?Friends and sisters, wives and brothers,?Blent with images of others,?Whom they ne'er shall see again.
Onward still the squadrons thunder--?Knightly hearts were their's and brave,?Men and horses without number?All the furrowed ground encumber--?Falling fast to their last slumber--?Bloody slumber! bloody grave!
Of that charge at Balaklava--?In its chivalry sublime--?Vivid, grand, historic pages?Shall descend to future ages;?Poets, painters, hoary sages?Shall record it for all time;
Telling how those English horsemen?Rode the Russian gunners down;?How with ranks all torn and shattered;?How with helmets hacked and battered;?How with sword arms blood-bespattered;?They won honor and renown.
'Twas "not war," but it was splendid?As a dream of old romance;?Thinking which their Gallic neighbors?Thrilled to watch them at their labors,?Hewing red graves with their sabres?In that wonderful advance.
Down went many a gallant soldier;?Down went many a stout dragoon;?Lying grim, and stark, and gory,?On the crimson field of glory,?Leaving us a noble story?And their white-cliffed home a boon.
Full of hopes and aspirations?Were their hearts at dawn of day;?Now, with forms all rent and broken,?Bearing each some frightful token?Of a scene ne'er to be spoken,?In their silent sleep they lay.
Here a noble charger stiffens,?There his rider grasps the hilt?Of his sabre lying bloody?By his side, upon the muddy,?Trampled ground, which darkly ruddy?Shows the blood that he has spilt.
And to-night the moon shall shudder?As she looks down on the moor,?Where the dead of hostile races?Slumber, slaughtered in their places;?All their rigid ghastly faces?Spattered hideously with gore.
And the sleepers! ah, the sleepers?Make a Westminster that day;?'Mid the seething battle's lava!?And each man who fell shall have a?Proud inscription--BALAKLAVA,?Which shall never fade away.
A SHORT SERMON.
"He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord."
The night-wind comes in sudden squalls:?The ruddy fire-light starts and falls?Fantastically on the walls.
The bare trees all their branches wave;?The frantic wind doth howl and rave,?Like prairie-wolf above a grave.
The moon looks out; but cold and pale,?And seeming scar'd at this wild gale?Draws o'er her pallid face a veil.
In vain I turn the poet's page--?In vain consult some ancient sage--?I hear alone the tempest rage.
The shutters tug at hinge and bar--?The windows clash with frosty jar--?The child creeps closer to "Papa."
And now, I almost start aghast,?The clamor rises thick and fast,?Surely a troop of fiends drove past!
That last shock shook the oaken door.?Sounding like billows on the shore,?On such a night God shield the poor!
God shield the poor to-night, who stay?In piteous homes! who, if they pray,?Ask thee, oh God! for bread and day!
Think! think! ye men who daily wear?"Purple and linen"--ye whose hair?Flings perfume on the temper'd air.
Think! think! I say, aye! start and think?That many tremble on death's brink--?Dying for want of meat and drink.
When tatter'd poor folk meet your eyes,?Think, friend, like Christian, in this wise,?Each one is Christ hid in disguise.
Then when you hear the tempest's roar?That thunders at your carv��d door,?Know that, it knocketh for the poor.
A LITTLE PICTURE.
Oft when pacing thro' the long and dim?Dark gallery of the Past, I pause before?A picture of which this is a copy--?Wretched at best.
How fair she look'd, standing a-tiptoe there,?Pois'd daintily upon her little feet!?The slanting sunset falling thro' the leaves?In golden glory on her smiling face,?Upturn'd towards the blushing roses; while?The breeze that came up from the river's brink,?Shook all their clusters over her fair face;?And sported with her robe, until methought,?That she stood there clad wondrously indeed!?In perfume and in music: for her dress?Made a low, rippling sound, like little waves?That break at midnight on the tawny sands--?While all the evening air of roses whisper'd.?Over her face a rich, warm blush spread slowly,?And she laughed, a low, sweet, mellow laugh?To see the branches still evade her hands--?Her small white hands which seem'd indeed as if?Made only thus to gather roses.
Then with face?All flushed and smiling she did nod to me?Asking my help to gather them for her:?And so, I bent the heavy clusters down,?Show'ring the rose-leaves o'er her neck and face;?Then carefully she plucked the very fairest one,?And court'seying playfully gave it to me--?Show'd me her finger-tip, pricked by a
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