AN EPISODE OF BALACLAVA

[The death of Captain George Lockwood, 8th Hussars.]

Edward E. Bowen

WHEN slow and faint from off the plain

Pale wrecks of sword and gun,

Torn limbs, and faces racked with pain,

Crept upwards, one by one;

When, striving as the hopeless strive,

Ascare with shot and flame,

Few pallid riders came alive,

And marvelled as they came;

Dared any, while with corpses rife

Red gleamed the ghastly track,

Ride, for the love of more than life,

Into the valley back?

Pierce, where the bravest tarried not,

Stand, where the strongest fell,

Face once again the surge of shot,

The plunging hail of shell?

He trod of old the hill we tread,

He played the games we play;

The part of him that is not dead

Belongs to us to-day;

When next the stranger scans the wall

Where carved our heroes are,

Wits — poets — statesmen — show them all,

And then, the one hussar.

He sought his chief a dim reply

From waving hand was brought;

'Passed on' to safety, meant the cry;

Amid the guns, he thought;

No question more; in purpose clear

His soldier's creed was strong;

Where rode, he knew, the brigadier,

Must ride the aide-de-camp!

He tossed his horse's bridle round,

Ere one could breathe a breath,

And fronted, as a practice ground,

The nearest way to death.

In pride of manhood's ripest spring,

Hopes high, and honour won,

He deemed his life a little thing,

And rode, a soldier, on.

Up, slow, the homeward remnant flew,

Staggered, and fell, and ran;

Down moved, through flying and through dead,

One hopeless, splendid man;

Alone, unrocked in heat of fray,

He stemmed the wave of flight,

And passed in smoke and flame away

From safety and from sight.

So ends the story; comrade none

Saw where he wounded lay;

No brother helped with cheering tone

His stricken life away;

Alone, the pain, the chill, the dread,

Crept on him, limb by limb;

The earth, which hides the nameless dead,

Closed nameless over him.

O soldiers of a bloodless strife,

O friends in work and play,

Bear we not all a coward life

Some moment in the day?

So, lest a deed of gallant faith

Forgotten fade from view,

I take the tale of LOCKWOOD'S death,

And write it down for you.