POETRY.
LORD ROBERTS.
THY country called thee; from the grave Of her dead child and thine: The single warrior Fortune gave To close a hero line.
O'er land and sea, from that far field Where thy lost son was laid, The sudden clarion summons pealed, And straightway, 'twas obeyed.
Because so well thy heart had learned The soldier's simple creed; And ne'er from iron duty turned A gentler voice to heed.
Her message to thy boyhood spoke As clear, as stern as now, When from the Sepoy battery broke Grim welcome to Lucknow.
How many a conflict, since, has left Its furrows on thy face, Where lines, the strenuous years have cleft, Tiaeir noble legend trace The record of the hundred fights, With little rest between, The days of toil, the watchful nights Those steadfast eyes have seen.
But Fate for later days reserved A fiercer strife to wage; When sons of those thy youth had served Sought counsel of thino age.
Thou cam'st: the stubborn rebel quailed: New hope our armies fired; As India's sunburned veterans hailed The captain they desired.
And if our England's heart be high, Who, after long defeat, Sees, with proud soul and kindling eye, Her foe men at her feet : Shall we, her sons, remember not Our debt to him alone, Who for her children's sake forgot His mourning for his own?
EDWARD SYDNEY TYLER.
NoTE.—Lieutenant Roberts was mentioned in despatches as haring been "first among the guns" at Lucknow.
Previous page
