What Peter told with drum and stick, And ever since a bard could sing, We love to read the glorious page, How Godfrey led his red-cross knights, Describes the same in classic prose. Of battles fierce and warriors big, He writes in phrases dull and slow, And waves his cauliflower wig, And shouts "Saint George for Marlborow!" Take Doctor Southey from the shelf, Good Lord, how doth he plume himself From first to last his page is filled With stirring tales how blows were struck. He shows how we the Frenchmen kill'd, And praises God for our good luck. Some hints, 't is true, of politics The doctors give and statesman's art: He cares not what the cause may be, But luck may change, and valour fail, The end of all such tales- a curse. Last year, my love, it was my hap And, but he wore a hairy cap, No taller man, methinks, than me. Prince Albert and the Queen, God wot, Your orthodox historian puts In foremost rank the soldier thus, The red-coat bully in his boots, That hides the march of men from us. He puts him there in foremost rank, Go to! I hate him and his trade: Tell me what find we to admire Ah, gentle, tender lady mine! The winter wind blows cold and shrill, And what care we for war and wrack, There lies the greatest of them all! To pluck him down, and keep him up, He captured many thousand guns; He wrote "The Great" before his name; And dying, only left his sons The recollection of his shame. 1 This ballad was written at Paris at the time of the Second Funeral of Napoleon. 1841. Though more than half the world was his, He fought a thousand glorious wars, ABD-EL-KADER AT TOULON OR, THE CAGED HAWK O more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk, of desert-life for thee; N° No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free: Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain, Shatter against thy cage the wing thou ne'er may'st spread again. Long, sitting by their watchfires, shall the Kabyles tell the tale Of thy dash from Ben Halifa on the fat Metidja vale; How thou swept'st the desert over, bearing down the wild El Riff, From eastern Beni Salah to western Ouad Shelif; How thy white burnous went streaming, like the stormrack o'er the sea, When thou rodest in the vanward of the Moorish chivalry; How thy razzia was a whirlwind, thy onset a simoom, How thy sword-sweep was the lightning, dealing death from out the gloom! Nor less quick to slay in battle than in peace to spare and save, Of brave men wisest councillor, of wise councillors most brave; How the eye that flashed destruction could beam gentle ness and love, How lion in thee mated lamb, how eagle mated dove! |