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At our work do any wonder, saying, "Frenchmen love the

fair?"

Such "fair?" Ha! ha! they blunder who thus twit us! Vive la Guerre!

What's that, so tall and meagre -Nay, bold Frenchmen, do not shrink!

'Tis a corpse, with features eager jammed for air into a chink. Whence is that hysteric sobbing?—nay, bold Frenchmen, do not draw!

"Tis an Arab's parched throat throbbing. Frenchmen love sweet mercy's law;

Make way there! Give him breathing! How he smiles to feel the air!

His breath seems incense wreathing to sweet Mercy! Vive la Guerre!

And now, to crown our glory, get we trophies to display
As vouchers for our story, and mementos of this day!
Once more then to the grottoes! gather each one all he

can

Blistered blade with Arab mottoes, spear head, bloody yata

ghan.

Give room now to the raven and the dog, who scent rich

fare;

And let these words be graven on the rock side-" Vive la Guerre!"

The trumpet sounds for marching! on, alike amid sweet meads,

Morass, or desert parching, wheresoe'er our captain leads!
To Pelissier sing praises! praises sing to bold Bugeaud!
Lit up by last night's blazes to all time their names will
show!

Cry "Conquer, kill, and ravage!" Never ask, "Who, what, or where?"

If civilized or savage, never heed, but-Vive la Guerre.

XVII.-CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

(ALFRED TENNYSON.)

For explanation see Prose Extracts, p. 29.

Alfred Tennyson was born at his father's parsonage in Lincolnshire, in 1810. lle was appointed Poet Laureate on the death of Wordsworth

(86)

HALF a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns," he said;
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die;
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volleyed and thundered ;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
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XVIII.-SCENE BEFORE THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

(BYRON.)

Corinth, a city famous in ancient times, is situated on the Gulf of Lepanto. The citadel is noted for its great height above the plain. The siege spoken of in the poem took place in 1715 A.D.

THE night is past, and shines the sun
As if that morn were a jocund one.
Lightly and brightly breaks away
The Morning from her mantle grey,
And the Noon will look on a sultry day.-

Hark to the trump and the drum,

And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,

And the flap of the banners that flit as they're borne,
And the neigh of the steed and the multitude's hum,
And the clash, and the shout " They come ! they come!"
The horse-tails are plucked from the ground, and the sword
From its sheath; and they form and but wait for the word.
The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein ;
Curved is each neck and flowing each mane;
White is the foam of their champ on the bit :-
The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;
The cannon are pointed and ready to roar
And crush the wall they have crumbled before :-
Forms in his phalanx each Janizar,

Alp at their head; his right arm is bare,
So is the blade of his scimitar;

The Khan and the Pachas are all at their post;
The Vizier himself at the head of the host.
"When the culverin's signal is fired, then on!
Leave not in Corinth a living one-

A priest at her altars-a chief in her halls-
A hearth in her mansions—a stone on her walls.
Heaven and the Prophet-Alla Hu!

Up to the skies with that wild halloo !”
As the wolves that headlong go

On the stately buffalo,

Though with fiery eyes and angry roar,

And hoofs that stamp and horns that gore,

He tramples on earth, or tosses on high

The foremost who rush on his strength but to die :

Thus against the wall they went,

Thus the first were backward bent:

Even as they fell, in files they lay,

Like the mower's grass at the close of day,

When his work is done on the levelled plain,

Such was the fall of the foremost slain.

As the spring-tides with heavy plash,
From the cliffs invading dash

Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow,
Till white and thundering down they go-

Like the avalanche's snow

On the Alpine vales below

Thus at length, out-breathed and worn,
Corinth's sons were downward borne
By the long and oft-renewed

Charge of the Moslem multitude.

In firmness they stood and in masses they fell,
Heaped by the host of the Infidel,

Hand to hand and foot to foot:
Nothing there save death was mute;
Stroke and thrust, and flash and cry
For quarter or for victory.

From the point of encountering blade to the hilt
Sabres and swords with blood were gilt:-

But the rampart is won—and the spoil begun—
And all, but the after-carnage, done.
Shriller shrieks now mingling come
From within the plundered dome.
Hark, to the haste of flying feet,

That splash in the blood of the slippery street!

XIX.-SCENE AFTER THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

(BYRON.)

ALP wandered on along the beach,

Till within the range of a carbine's reach

Of the leaguered wall; but they saw him not,
Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot?

Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold?

Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts waxed cold! I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall

There flashed no fire and there hissed no ball,

Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown

That flanked the sea-ward gate of the town;

Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell

The sullen words of the sentinel,

As his measured step on the stone below

Clanked, as he paced it to and fro ;

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