A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves | Page 4

gathered, spurs are driven,
And the heavens widely riven

With a mad shout upward given,
Scaring vultures on the wing.
Stern its meaning; was not Gallia
Looking down on Albion's sons?

In each mind this thought implanted,
Undismayed and all undaunted,

By the battle-fiends enchanted,
They ride down upon the guns.
Onward! On! the chargers trample;
Quicker falls each iron heel!

And the headlong pace grows faster;
Noble steed and noble master,

Rushing on to red disaster,
Where 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 carvéd
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