5 JULY 1856, Page 30

THE RETURN OF THE GUARDS. JULY 1856.

Two years—an age of glory and of pain!— Since we with blessings and with shouts and tears, And with high hopes, pursued your parting train With everything but fears.

Too lightly then, perchance' we let you go ; For war is sweet to them that never tried, And hearts are sullen, which refuse to know Its splendour and its pride.

Forth from beside our hearths we saw you pass, And guessed that battle must be stern and strong; War's shapes we saw, but dimly, in a glass,— Its shapes of wrath and wrong.

We saw not, Heaven in mercy did not show, The fiery squadrons rushing to their doom, An army in its winding-sheet of snow, Slow sinking to the tomb.

We saw not Scutari's piled-up agonie

Nor those blest hands and hearts that brought relief; Splendours and glooms were hidden from our eyes,— What glory and what grief!

One thing we saw, one only thing we knew, That come what might, ye would not bring to shame The loved land, which had trusted thus to you Its wealth of ancient fame.

Therefore the old land greets you, whose renown In face of friend and foe ye well upbore, Handing the treasure of its glory down firight, brighter than before.

And greets you first, as owing you the most, The Lady, whose transcendent diadem,

-Unless she ruled brave men, would cease to boast Its beat and fairest gem.

But ith ! if through her bosom there is sent, Nor hers alone, a pang of piercing pain, With tearful-memories of the brave who went, And come not now again,

All who have made a holy land for aye (Such consecration is in glorious graves) Of that black barren headland far away, Foamed round by Ewrilie waves ; Yet shall this sadness presently dep

Leaving undimmed the splendour of tiia hour' - We rather thanking Heaven with grateful heart For their high gift and dower,

Who ending well, have passed beyond the range Of our mutations ; whom no spot or stain Can now touch ever ; for whom chance and change Not any more remain.

Shout then, ye ; let glad thoughts have way ; i Shout, and n these their absent fellows greet,- Yea, all who shared with them of that fierce day The burden and the heat.

Nor yet forget that when in coming time Ey many an English hearth shall men recall This two-years chronicle of deeds sublime, Then first, perchance, of all, They, talking of dread Inkermann, shall tell, When that wild storm of fight had passed away, How thick by those low mounds they kept so well