A Pathetic Ballad

Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
And used to war’s alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.

Now as they bore him off the field,
Said he, ‘Let others shoot;
For here I leave my second leg,
And the Forty-second Foot.’

The army-surgeons made him limbs:
Said he, ‘They’re only pegs;
But there’s as wooden members quite,
As represent my legs.’

Now Ben he loved a pretty maid, —
Her name was Nelly Gray;
So he went to pay her his devours,
When he devoured his pay.

But when he called on Nelly Gray,
She made him quite a scoff;
And when she saw his wooden legs,
Began to take them off.

‘O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray!’
Is this your love so warm?
The love that loves a scarlet coat
Should be a little more uniform.

Said she, ‘ I loved a soldier once,
For he was blithe and brave;
But I will never have a man
With both legs in the grave

‘Before you had those timber toes
Your love I did allow;
But then, you know, you stand upon
Another footing now.’

‘O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray!
For all your jeering speeches,
At duty’s call I left my legs
In Badajos’s breaches.’

‘Why, then,’ said she, ‘you’ve lost the feet
Of legs in war’s alarms,
And now you cannot wear your shoes
Upon your feats of arms!’

‘O false and fickle Nelly Gray!
I know why you refuse:
Though I’ve no feet, some other man
Is standing in my shoes.

‘I wish I ne’er had seen your face;
But, now, a long farewell!
For you will be my death’ — alas!
You will not be my Nell!’

Now when he went from Nelly Gray
His heart so heavy got,
And life was such a burden grown,
It made him take a knot.

So round his melancholy neck
A rope he did intwine,
And, for his second time in life,
Enlisted in the Line.

One end he tied around a beam,
And then removed his pegs;
And, as his legs were off — of course
He soon was off his legs.

And there he hung till he was dead
As any nail in town;
For, though distress had cut him up,
It could not cut him down.

A dozen men sat on his corpse,
To find out why he died, —
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads
With a stake in his inside.

— Thomas Hood, Faithless Nelly Gray

A sea of foliage girds our garden round,
But not a sea of dull unvaried green,
Sharp contrasts of all colors here are seen;
The light-green graceful tamarinds abound
Amid the mango clumps of green profound,
And palms arise, like pillars gray, between;
And o’er the quiet pools the seemuls lean,
Red-red, and startling like a trumpet’s sound.
But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges
Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon
Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus changes
Into a cup of silver. One might swoon
Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze
On a primeval Eden, in amaze.

— Toru Dutt, Sonnet

Of this worlds theatre in which we stay,
My love like the spectator ydly sits
Beholding me that all the pageants play,
Disguysing diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in myrth lyke to a comedy:
Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my merth nor rues my smart:
But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone,
She is no woman, but a senceless stone.

— Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 54

Youth of France, sons of the bold,
     Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold!
     Our civic-laurels—honored dead!
       So bright your triumphs in life's morn,
       Your maiden-standards hacked and torn,
     On Austerlitz might lustre shed.

     All that your fathers did re-done—
     A people's rights all nobly won—
     Ye tore them living from the shroud!
       Three glorious days bright July's gift,
       The Bastiles off our hearts ye lift!
     Oh! of such deeds be ever proud!

     Of patriot sires ye lineage claim,
     Their souls shone in your eye of flame;
     Commencing the great work was theirs;
       On you the task to finish laid
       Your fruitful mother, France, who bade
     Flow in one day a hundred years.

     E'en chilly Albion admires,
     The grand example Europe fires;
     America shall clap her hands,
       When swiftly o'er the Atlantic wave,
       Fame sounds the news of how the brave,
     In three bright days, have burst their bands!

     With tyrant dead your fathers traced
     A circle wide, with battles graced;
     Victorious garland, red and vast!
       Which blooming out from home did go
       To Cadiz, Cairo, Rome, Moscow,
     From Jemappes to Montmirail passed!

     Of warlike Lyceums{1} ye are
     The favored sons; there, deeds of war
     Formed e'en your plays, while o'er you shook
       The battle-flags in air aloft!
       Passing your lines, Napoleon oft
     Electrified you with a look!

     Eagle of France! whose vivid wing
     Did in a hundred places fling
     A bloody feather, till one night
       The arrow whelmed thee 'neath the wave!
       Look up—rejoice—for now thy brave
     And worthy eaglets dare the light.

-- Victor Hugo, The Three Glorious Days

You are young, and I am older;
You are hopeful, I am not –
Enjoy life, ere it grow colder –
Pluck the roses ere they rot.

Teach your beau to heed the lay –
That sunshine soon is lost in shade –
That now’s as good as any day –
To take thee, Rosa, ere she fade.

— Abraham Lincoln, To Rosa

Old John had an apple-tree, healthy and green,
Which bore the best codlins that ever were seen,
So juicy, so mellow, and red;
And when they were ripe, he disposed of his store,
To children or any who pass’d by his door,
To buy him a morsel of bread.

Little Dick, his next neighbour, one often might see,
With longing eye viewing this fine apple-tree,
And wishing a codlin might fall:
One day as he stood in the heat of the sun,
He began thinking whether he might not take one,
And then he look’d over the wall.

And as he again cast his eye on the tree,
He said to himself, ‘Oh, how nice they would be,
So cool and refreshing to-day!
The tree is so full, and one only I’ll take,
And John cannot see if I give it a shake,
And nobody is in the way.

But stop, little boy, take your hand from the bough,
Remember, though John cannot see you just now,
And no one to chide you is nigh,
There is One, who by night, just as well as by day,
Can see all you do, and can hear all you say,
From his glorious throne in the sky.

O then little boy, come away from the tree,
Lest tempted to this wicked act you should be:
‘Twere better to starve than to steal;
For the great GOD, who even through darkness can look,
Writes down every crime we commit, in His book;
Nor forgets what we try to conceal.

— Jane Taylor, The Apple Tree

1 My Soul, there is a country
2 Afar beyond the stars,
3 Where stands a winged sentry
4 All skillful in the wars;
5 There, above noise and danger
6 Sweet Peace sits, crown’d with smiles,
7 And One born in a manger
8 Commands the beauteous files.
9 He is thy gracious friend
10 And (O my Soul awake!)
11 Did in pure love descend,
12 To die here for thy sake.
13 If thou canst get but thither,
14 There grows the flow’r of peace,
15 The rose that cannot wither,
16 Thy fortress, and thy ease.
17 Leave then thy foolish ranges,
18 For none can thee secure,
19 But One, who never changes,
20 Thy God, thy life, thy cure.

— Henry Vaughan, Peace

By ways remote and distant waters sped,
Brother, to thy sad grave-side am I come,
That I may give the last gifts to the dead,
And vainly parley with thine ashes dumb:
Since she who now bestows and now denies
Hath ta’en thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes.
But lo! these gifts, the heirlooms of past years,
Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell;
Take them, all drenched with a brother’s tears,
And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!

— Gaius Valerius Catullus — No. 101 (On His Brother’s Death)

Drake he’s in his hammock an’ a thousand miles away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time O’ Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi’ sailor lads a-dancing’ heel-an’-toe,
An’ the shore-lights flashin’, an’ the night-tide dashin’,
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.

Drake he was a Devon man, an’ ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha’ sleepin’ there below?)
Roving’ tho’ his death fell, he went wi’ heart at ease,
A’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
“Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven,
An’ drum them up the Channel as we drumm’d them long ago.”

Drake he’s in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Slung atween the round shot, listenin’ for the drum,
An’ dreamin arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade’s plyin’ an’ the old flag flyin’
They shall find him ware an’ wakin’, as they found him long ago!

— Sir Henry Newbolt, Drake’s Drum

At evening the autumn woodlands ring
With deadly weapons. Over the golden plains
And lakes of blue, the sun
More darkly rolls. The night surrounds
Warriors dying and the wild lament
Of their fragmented mouths.
Yet silently there gather in the willow combe
Red clouds inhabited by an angry god,
Shed blood, and the chill of the moon.
All roads lead to black decay.
Under golden branching of the night and stars
A sister’s shadow sways through the still grove
To greet the heroes’ spirits, the bloodied heads.
And softly in the reeds Autumn’s dark flutes resound.
O prouder mourning! – You brazen altars,
The spirit’s hot flame is fed now by a tremendous pain:
The grandsons, unborn.

— Georg Trakl, Grodek