The Battle of Assye
(From the United Services College "Chronicle," July 2, 1886.)
Save where our huge sea-castles from afar,
Beat down, in scorn, some weak Egyptian wall,
We are too slothful to give heed to war.
As a gorged Lion will not stir at all,
Although the hunter mock him openly,
So we are moveless when the trumpets call.
A soldier's letter, written long ago
(The ink lies yellow on the tattered page),
Telling of war, with rugged overflow
Of epithet, and bursts of uncouth rage;
And as I find the letter—so I write
My record of brave deeds in a dead age.
"The man was a man you could follow to death,
And dying, thank with your latest breath
For the honour granted—and he had led
From the sea to the scorching plains inland,
Where the soil would flay the skin from your hand
If you let it rest for a moment there;
And the sun at noonday strikes you dead,
And the breeze is a blast of furnace air;
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