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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341734" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Defence of Lucknow</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>BANNER of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast thou<br>Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle-cry!<br>Never with mightier glory than when we had rear’d thee on high<br>Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Lucknow—<br>Shot thro’ the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised thee anew,<br>And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our lives—<br>Women and children among us, God help them, our children and wives!<br>Hold it we might—and for fifteen days or for twenty at most.<br>‘Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!’<br>Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the best of the brave:<br>Cold were his brows when we kiss’d him—we laid him that night in his grave.<br>‘Every man die at his post!’ and there hail’d on our houses and halls<br>Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-balls,<br>Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight barricade,<br>Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stoopt to the spade,<br>Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell,<br>Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro’ it, their shot and their shell,<br>Death—for their spies were among us, their marksmen were told of our best,<br>So that the brute bullet broke thro’ the brain that could think for the rest;<br>Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet—<br>Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled us round—<br>Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a street,<br>Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in the ground!<br>Mine? yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! and creep thro’ the hole!<br>Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him—the murderous mole!<br>Quiet, ah! quiet—wait till the point of the pickaxe be thro’!<br>Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again than before—<br>Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more;<br>And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day<br>Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap echo ‘d away,<br>Dark thro’ the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hell—<br>Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell—<br>Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell.<br>What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan!<br>Storm at the Water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm, and it ran<br>Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side<br>Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily devour’d by the tide—<br>So many thousands that if they be bold enough, who shall escape?<br>Kill or be kill’d, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men<br>Ready! take aim at their leaders—their masses are gapp’d with our grape—<br>Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward again,<br>Flying and foil’d at the last by the handful they could not subdue;<br>And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.<br>Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb,<br>Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure,<br>Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him;<br>Still—could we watch at all points? we were every day fewer and fewer.<br>There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that past<br>‘Children and wives—if the tigers leap into the fold unawares—<br>Every man die at his post—and the foe may outlive us at last—<br>Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into theirs!’<br>Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy sprung<br>Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades.<br>Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true!<br>Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusillades—<br>Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung,<br>Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand-grenades;<br>And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.<br>Then on another wild morning another wild earthquake out-tore<br>Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good paces or more.<br>Rifleman, high on the roof, hidden there from the light of the sun—<br>One has leapt up on the breach, crying out: ‘Follow me, follow me!’—<br>Mark him—he falls! then another, and him too, and down goes he.<br>Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the traitors had won?<br>Boardings and rafters and doors—an embrasure I make way for the gun!<br>Now double-charge it with grape! It is charged and we fire, and they run.<br>Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his due!<br>Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and few,<br>Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them, and slew,<br>That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India blew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.<br>Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight!<br>But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all thro’ the night—<br>Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms,<br>Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms,<br>Ever the labour of fifty that had to be done by five,<br>Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive,<br>Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes around,<br>Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground,<br>Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies,<br>Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies.<br>Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field,<br>Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be heal’d,<br>Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful-pitiless knife,—<br>Torture and trouble in vain,—for it never could save us a life.<br>Valour of delicate women who tended the hospital bed,<br>Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead,<br>Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief,<br>Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief,<br>Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butcher’d for all that we knew—<br>Then day and night, day and night, coming down on the still-shatter’d walls<br>Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon-balls—<br>But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.<br>Hark cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout,<br>Outram and Havelock breaking their way through the fell mutineers?<br>Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears!<br>All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout,<br>Havelock’s glorious Highlanders answer with conquering cheers,<br>Sick from the hospital echo them, women and children come out,<br>Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock’s good fusileers,<br>Kissing the war-harden’d hand of the Highlander wet with their tears!<br>Dance to the pibroch!—saved! we are saved!—is it you? is it you?<br>Saved by the valour of Havelock, saved by the blessing of Heaven!<br>‘Hold it for fifteen days!’ we have held it for eighty-seven!<br>And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alfred+Lord+Tennyson">Alfred Lord Tennyson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341734" data-title="The Defence of Lucknow de Alfred Lord Tennyson" data-description="I
BANNER of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast thou
Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle-cry!
Never with mightier glory than when we had rear’d thee on high
Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Luck..."></div>
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