How, facing an unconquerable foe, Silent and firm in the lost battle's roar, Iphition fell, three thousand years ago, We learn ;-let him have praise for evermore. What! though his slayer, drunk with Eastern blood, The shout that shattered armies into flight, The godlike form in heaven's own armour clad, The golden plumes divine that lived with light At every step, for him no terrors had. Right on he rushed, though to a certain doom, And, carrying with him proudly to the tomb There Homer leaves him, like a tall ship wrecked— Leaves him to wolves and vultures where he lay; But that which makes the man, no bard's neglect To beast, or bird, or Time can yield a prey. Thus ever, through eternity, we dream That he by looking back is comforted, That the long sunless hours of Hades gleam, That inward still he murmurs, as the wind Murmurs through roofless halls : 'At least I know 'Death cometh-ay! but after death to say 'Armed by no god, but as my fellow-men, Till my safe conqueror struck me down, and then Against his lance, the blood leapt warm and red. 'And even here, on this unhoping coast, With spirit unexhausted I can bow To what Fate sends; Achilles, as a ghost, 'Though all life lent my soul no longer aid; 1 6 Odyssey,' b. xi. 488-90. THE LOSS OF THE 'BIRKENHEAD': SUPPOSED TO BE TOLD BY A SOLDIER WHO SURVIVED. RIGHT on our flank the sun was dropping down; The stout ship 'Birkenhead' lay hard and fast, Her timbers thrill'd as nerves, when through them pass'd And ever like base cowards, who leave their ranks From underneath her keel. So calm the air-so calm and still the flood, They tarried, the waves tarried, for their prey! The sea turned one clear smile! Like things asleep Those dark shapes in the azure silence lay, As quiet as the deep. 273 THE LOSS OF THE 'BIRKENHEAD? Then amidst oath, and prayer, and rush, and wreck, To die!-'twas hard, while the sleek ocean glow'd Our English hearts beat true-we would not stir : They shall not say in England, that we fought So we made women with their children go, -What follows, why recall?—The brave who died, Died without flinching in the bloody surf, They sleep as well beneath that purple tide As others under turf. They sleep as well! and, roused from their wild grave, T 274 THE LOSS OF THE 'BIRKENHEAD: If that day's work no clasp or medal mark; If each proud heart no cross of bronze may press, Nor cannon thunder loud from Tower or Park, This feel we none the less: That those whom God's high grace there saved from ill, Though not by siege, though not in battle, still 7 |