Classic Poem

Here Craufurd fell, victorious, in the breach,
Leading his countrymen in that assault
Which won from haughty France these rescued walls;
And here entomb'd, far from his native land
And kindred dust, his honor'd relics rest.
Well was he versed in war, in the Orient train'd
Beneath Cornwallis; then, for many a year,
Following through arduous and ill-fated fields
The Austrian banners; on the sea-like shores
Of Plata next, still by malignant stars
Pursued; and in that miserable retreat,
For which Coruña witness'd on her hills
The pledge of vengeance given. At length he saw,
Long woo'd and well-deserved, the brighter face
Of Fortune, upon Coa's banks vouchsafed,
Before Almeida, when Massena found
The fourfold vantage of his numbers foil'd,
Before the Briton, and the Portugal,
There vindicating first his old renown,
And Craufurd's mind that day presiding there.
Again was her auspicious countenance
Upon Busaco's holy heights reveal'd;
And when by Torres Vedras, Wellington,
Wisely secure, defied the boastful French,
With all their power; and when Onoro's springs
Beheld that execrable enemy
Again chastised beneath the avenging arm.
Too early here his honorable course
He closed, and won his noble sepulchre.
Where should the soldier rest so worthily
As where he fell? Be thou his monument,
O City of Rodrigo, yea, be thou,
To latest time, his trophy and his tomb!
Sultans, or Pharaohs of the elder world,
Lie not in Mosque or Pyramid enshrined
Thus gloriously, nor in so proud a grave.