An Evening Dream

I'm leaning where you loved to lean in eventides of old,
The sun has sunk an hour ago behind the treeless wold,
In this old oriel that we loved how oft I sit forlorn,
Gazing, gazing, up the vale of green and waving corn.
The summer corn is in the ear, thou knowest what I see
Up the long wide valley, and from seldom tree to tree,
The serried corn, the serried corn, the green and serried
corn,
From the golden morn till night, from the moony night

till morn.

I love it, morning, noon, and night, in sunshine and in rain,
For being here it seems to say, 'The lost come back
again.'
And being here as green and fair as those old fields we
knew,
It says, 'The lost when they come back, come back un-
changed and true.'
But more than at the shout of morn, or in the sleep of
noon,
Smiling with a smiling star, or wan beneath a wasted
moon,

I love it, soldier brother! at this weird dim hour, for

then
The serried ears are swords and spears, and the fields are

fields of men.
Rank on rank in faultless phalanx stern and still I. can

discern,
Phalanx after faultless phalanx in dumb armies still and

stem;
Army on army, host on host, till the bannered nations

stand,
As the dead may stand for judgment silent on the over-
peopled land.
Not a bayonet stirs; down sinks the awful twilight, dern

and dun,
On an age that waits its leader, on a world that waits the

sun.

Then your dog— I know his voice — cries from out the

courtyard nigh,
And my love too well interprets all that long and
mournful cry!
In my passion that thou art not, lo! I see thee as thou
art,
And the pitying fancy brings thee to assuage the an-
guished heart.
'Oh my brother 1 ' and my bosom's throb of welcome at
the word,
Claps a hundred thousand hands, and all my legions hail
thee lord.

And the vast unmotioned myriads, front to front, as at a
breath,'
Live and move to martial music, down the devious dance

of death.
Ah, thou smilest, scornful brother, at a maiden's dream of

war!
And thou shakest back thy locks as if — a glow-worm for

thy star —
I dubbed thee with a blade of grass, by earthlight, in a

fairy ring,
Knight o' the garter o' Queen Mab, or lord in waiting to

her king.
Brother, in thy plumed pride of tented field and turretted

tower,
Smiling brother, scornful brother, darest thou watch. with

me one hour?
Even now some fate is near, for I shake and know not

why,
And a wider sight is orbing, orbing, on my moistened

eye,
And I feel a thousand flutterings round my soul's still

vacant field,
Like the ravens and the vultures o'er a carnage yet un-

killed.
Hist! I see the stir of glamour far upon the twilight

wold,
Hist! I see the vision rising! List! and as I speak
behold!

These dull mists are mists of morning, and behind yon

eastern hill,
The hot sun abides my bidding: he shall melt them

when I will.
All the night that now is past, the foe hath laboured for

the day,
Creeping thro' the stealthy dark, like a tiger to his prey.
Throw this window wider! Strain thine eyes along the

dusky vale!
Art thou cold with horror? Has thy bearded cheek

grown pale?
'Tis the total Russian host, flooding up the solemn plain,
Secret as a silent sea, mighty as a moving main I
Oh, my country! is there none to rouse thee to the

rolling sight?
Oh thou gallant sentinel who has watched so oft so well,

must thou sleep this only night?
So hath the shepherd lain on a rock above a plain,
Nor beheld the flood that swelled from some embowelled

mount of woe,
Waveless, foamless, sure and slow,
Silent o'er the vale below,

Till nigher still and nigher comes the seeth of fields on fire,
And the thrash of falling trees, and the steam of

rivers dry,
And before the burning flood the wild things of the wood
Skulk and scream, and fight, and fall, and flee, and
fly.

A gun! and then a gun! I' the far and early sun

Dost thou see by yonder tree a fleeting redness rise,
As if, one after one, ten poppies red had blown,

And shed in a blinking of the eyes?
They have started from their rest with a bayonet at each
breast,
Those watchers of the west who shall never watch
again!
'Tis nought to die, but oh, God's pity on the woe
Of dying hearts that know they die in vain!
Beyond yon backward height that meets their dying sight,
A thousand tents are white, and a slumbering army
lies.

'Brown Bess,' the sergeant cries, as he loads her while

he dies,
'Let this devil's deluge reach them, and the good old

cause is lost.'
He dies upon the word, but his signal gun is heard,

Yon ambush green is stirred, yon labouring leaves
are tost,
And a sudden sabre waves, and like dead from opened
graves,
A hundred men stand up to meet a host.
Dumb as death, with bated breath,
Calm upstand that fearless band,

And the dear old native land, like a dream of
sudden sleep,
Passes by each manly eye that is fixed so stern and dry
On the tide of battle rolling up the steep.

They hold their silent ground, I can hear each fatal
sound
Upon that summer mound which the morning sun-
shine warms,
The word so brief and shrill that rules them like a will,
The sough of moving limbs, and the clank and ring
of arms.
'Fire!' and round that green knoll the sudden war-
clouds roll,
And from the tyrant's ranks so fierce an answ'ring
blast
Of whirling death came back that the green trees turned
to black,
And dropped their leaves in winter as it passed.
A moment on each side the surging smoke is wide,

Between the fields are green, and around the hills
are loud,
But a shout breaks out, and lo! they have rushed upon
the foe,
As the living lightning leaps from cloud to cloud.
Fire and flash, smoke and crash,
The fogs of battle close o'er friends and foes, and they

are gone!
Alas, thou bright-eyed boy! alas, thou mother's joy!
With thy long hair so fair, thou didst so bravely lead
them on!
I faint with pain and fear. Ah, heaven! what do I
hear?
A trumpet-note so near?

What are these that race like hunters at a chase?

Who are these that run a thousand men as one?
What are these that crash the trees far in the waving

rear?
Fight on, thou young hero! there's help upon the way!
The light horse are coming, the great guns are coming,
The Highlanders are coming; — good God give us
the day!
Hurrah for the brave and the leal! Hurrah for the strong

and the true!
Hurrah for the helmets of steel! Hurrah for the bonnets

o' blue!
A run and a cheer, the Highlanders are here! a gallop

and a cheer, the light horse are here!
A rattle and a cheer, the great guns are here!

With a cheer they wheel round and face the foe!
As the troopers wheel about, their long swords are out,

With a trumpet and a shout, in they go!
Like a yawning ocean green, the huge host gulphs them
in,
But high o'er the rolling of the flood,
Their sabres you may see like lights upon the sea

When the red sun is going down in blood.
Again, again, again! And the lights are on the wane!

Ah, Christ! I see them sink, light by light,
As the gleams go one by one when the great sun is
down,
And the sea rocks in foam beneath the night.

Aye, the great sun is low, and the waves of battle flow

O'er his honoured head; but, oh, we mourn not he
is down,
For to-morrow he shall rise to fill his country's eyes,

As he sails up the skies of renown!
Ye may yell, but ye shall groan!
Ye shall buy them bone for bone!
Now, tyrant, hold thine own! blare the trumpet, peal the

drum!
From yonder hill-side dark, the storm is on you!
Hark!

Swift as lightning, loud as thunder, down they come!
As on some Scottish shore, with mountains frowning o'er,

The sudden tempests roar from the glen,
And roll the tumbling sea in billows to the lee,

Came the charge of the gallant Highlandmen!
And as one beholds the sea tho' the wind he cannot see,

But by the waves that flee knows its might,
So I tracked the Highland blast by the sudden tide that
past

O'er the wild and rolling vast of the fight.
Yes, glory be to God! they have stemmed the foremost
flood!

I lay me on the sod and breathe again!
In the precious moments won, the bugle call has gone

To the tents where it never rang in vain,
And lo, the landscape wide is red from side to side,

And all the might of England loads the plain!

Like a hot and bloody dawn, across the horizon drawn,
While the host of darkness holds the misty vale,
As glowing and as grand our bannered legions stand,
And England's flag unfolds upon the gale!
At that great sign unfurled, as morn moves o'er the
world
When God lifts His standard of light,
With a tumult and a voice, and a rushing mighty noise,
Our long line moves forward to the fight.
Clarion and clarion defying,
Sounding, resounding, replying,
Trumpets braying, pipers playing, chargers neighing,
N ear and far

The to and fro storm of the never-done hurrahing,
Thro' the bright weather banner and feather rising and

falling, bugle and fife
Calling, recalling — for death or for life —
Our host moved on to the war,

While England, England, England, England, England!
Was blown from line to line near and far,
And like the morning sea, our bayonets you might see,
Come beaming, gleaming, streaming,
Streaming, gleaming, beaming,
Beaming, gleaming, streaming, to the war.
Clarion and clarion defying,
Sounding, resounding, replying,
Trumpets braying, pipers playing, chargers neighing,
Near and far
The to and fro storm of the never-done hurrahing,
Thro' the bright weather, banner and feather rising and

falling, bugle and fife
Calling, recalling — for death or for life —
Our long line moved forward to the war.