Classic Poem

Many a deed of faithful daring may obtain no record here,
Wrought where none could see or note it, save the one Almighty Seer.

Many a deed awhile remembered, out of memory needs must fall,
Covered, as the years roll onward, by oblivion's creeping pall:

But there are which never, never to oblivion can give room,
Till in flame earth's records perish, till the thunder-peal of doom.

And of these through all the ages married to immortal fame,
One is linked, and linked for ever, Balaklava, with thy name—

With thine armies three that wondering stood at gaze and held their breath,
With thy fatal lists of honor, and thy tournament of death.

O our brothers that are sleeping, weary with your great day's strife,
On that bleak Crimean headland, noble prodigals of life—

Eyes which ne'er beheld you living, these have dearly mourned you dead,
All your squandered wealth of valor, all the lavish blood ye shed.

And in our eyes tears are springing, but we bid them back again;
None shall say, to see us weeping, that we hold your offering vain:

That for nothing, in our sentence, did that holocaust arise,
With a battle field for altar, and with you for sacrifice.

Not for naught; to more than warriors armed as you for mortal fray,
Unto each that in life's battle waits his Captain's word ye say:—

“What by duty's voice is bidden, there where duty's star may guide,
Thither follow, that accomplish, whatsoever else betide.”

This ye taught; and this your lesson solemnly in blood ye sealed:
Heroes, martyrs, are the harvest Balaklava's heights shall yield.