Your son is alive from the hosts of the slain,
And the Cross of our Queen on his breast glitters fair!"
THE ALMA.
(September 20, 1854.)
BY RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH.
Though till now ungraced in story, scant although thy waters be,
Alma, roll those waters proudly, proudly roll them to the sea:
Yesterday, unnamed, unhonoured, but to wandering Tartar known--
Now thou art a voice for ever, to the world's four corners blown.
In two nations' annals graven, thou art now a deathless name,
And a star for ever shining in the firmament of fame.
Many a great and ancient river, crowned with city, tower and shrine,
Little streamlet, knows no magic, boasts no potency like thine,
Cannot shed the light thou sheddest around many a living head,
Cannot lend the light thou lendest to the memories of the dead.
Yea, nor all unsoothed their sorrow, who can, proudly mourning, say--
When the first strong burst of anguish shall have wept itself away--
"He has pass'd from, us, the loved one; but he sleeps with them that
died
By the Alma, at the winning of that terrible hill-side."
Yes, and in the days far onward, when we all are cold as those
Who beneath thy vines and willows on their hero-beds repose,
Thou on England's banners blazon'd with the famous fields of old,
Shalt, where other fields are winning, wave above the brave and bold;
And our sons unborn shall nerve them for some great deed to be done,
By that Twentieth of September, when the Alma's heights were won.
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