THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.1

OH, that last day in Lucknow fort!
We knew that it was the last;
That the enemy's mines 2 crept surely in,
And the end was coming fast.

To yield to that foe meant worse than death;
And the men and we all worked on;
It was one day more of smoke and roar,
And then it would all be done.

There was one of us, a corporal's wife,
A fair, young, gentle thing,

Wasted with fever in the siege,

And her mind was wandering.

1 The Relief of Lucknow: In 1857 a fearful and wide-spread mutiny broke out among the native troops of India against their English rulers.

On the 1st of July a large number of English including about 130 women and children were besieged in the fort of Lucknow, a town of Northern India, on a tributary of the Ganges.

The garrison was too small to properly defend the place; food began to grow scarce, and fever, small-pox, and cholera carried off many.

For nearly three months the besieged waited for succor. At length, on Sept. 25, General Havelock came to their rescue, though the final relief of the place did not occur until Sir Colin Campbell rescued the garrison nearly a month later.

2 Mines: excavations made by the enemy for the purpose of blowing up the fort,

She lay on the ground, in her Scottish plaid,
And I took her head on my knee;

"When my father comes hame frae the pleugh,"1 she said,

"Oh! then please wauken 2 me."

She slept like a child on her father's floor,
In the flecking 3 of wood-bine shade,
When the house-dog sprawls by the open door,
And the mother's wheel is stayed.5

It was smoke and roar and powder-stench,
And hopeless waiting for death;
And the soldier's wife, like a full-tired child,
Seemed scarce to draw her breath.

I sank to sleep; and I had my dream
Of an English village-lane,

And wall and garden; but one wild scream
Brought me back to the roar again.

There Jessie Brown stood listening

Till a sudden gladness broke

All over her face; and she caught my hand
And drew me near and spoke:

"The Hielanders! Oh! dinna ye hear
The slogan far awa?

The McGregor's?8 Oh! I ken 9 it weel; 10
It's the grandest o' them a'!

1 Pleugh: plough.

2 Wauken: waken.

8 Flecking: here, dappling or variegating with light and shade.

4 Wheel: spinning-wheel.

6 Hielanders: Highlanders.

5 Stayed: stopped.

7 Slogan: the war-cry.

8 McGregor's: the Highland clan of that name.

9 Ken: know,

10 Weel: well.

"God bless thae 1 bonny 2 Hielanders!

We're saved! we're saved!" she cried;
And fell on her knees; and thanks to God
Flowed forth like a full flood-tide.

Along the battery line her cry

Had fallen among the men,

And they started back;

they were there to die;

But was life so near them, then?

They listened for life; the rattling fire
Far off, and the far-off roar,

Were all; and the colonel shook his head,
And they turned to their guns once more.

Then Jessie said, "That slogan's done;
But can ye hear them noo,8

"The Campbells are comin'" ?4 It's no a dream;
Our succors 5 hae broken through."

We heard the roar and the rattle afar,
But the pipes we could not hear;

So the men plied their work of hopeless war,
And knew that the end was near.

It was not long ere it made its way,
A thrilling, ceaseless sound:

It was no noise from the strife afar,
Or the sappers under ground.

1 Thae: those.

7

2 Bonny handsome, good.

8 Noo: now.

6 Pipes: bag-pipes.

4 "The Campbells are comin'": a famous Scotch tune.

5 Succors: rescuers.

7 Sappers: the enemy's soldiers engaged in making the mines to blow up the fort.

It was the pipers of the Highlanders!

And now they played "Auld Lang Syne." It came to our men like the voice of God, And they shouted along the line.

And they wept, and shook one another's hands,
And the women sobbed in a crowd;

And every one knelt down where he stood,
And we all thanked God aloud.

That happy day, when we welcomed them,
Our men put Jessie first;

And the general gave her his hand, and cheers
Like a storm from the soldiers burst.

1

And the pipers' ribbons and tartan 1 streamed,
Marching round and round our line;

And our joyful cheers were broken with tears,
As the pipes played "Auld Lang Syne."

ROBERT TRAIL SPENCE LOWELL

1 Tartan: the Scotch plaid.

CASABIANCA.1

THE boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though childlike form.

The flames rolled on he would not go
Without his father's word;

1 Casabianca (Ka-sa-be-an'ka): There are several versions of the story of Casabianca, no one of which can be said to be capable of historical proof, yet all probably have some common foundation in fact.

The usual account represents him as a lad of ten, the son of Admiral Brueys, commander of the French man-of-war L'Orient.

At the battle of the Nile between Nelson and Napoleon in 1798, Admiral Brueys was mortally wounded, and left to die on the deck of his ship. Shortly after nightfall the vessel was discovered to be in flames, and a number of English sailors went at Nelson's orders to rescue the officers and crew.

All left the doomed ship but Casabianca. He refused, saying that his father, who was now dead, had told him not to leave his post, and that he would not disobey him.

There was no time for delay; the boat put off, and in a few minutes later the French frigate blew up. Whether Casabianca lost his life in the explosion or whether, as some suppose, he leaped overboard just before it occurred in the attempt to swim ashore with his father's corpse, is unknown; but in either case the brave boy perished.