Classic Poem

I.

Sleep on! sleep on! ye beautiful and brave! —
Where late the cannon's boom
Thunder'd its voice of doom;
Where late your charging cry
Rose o'er the rattling musquetry;
All now is still, save Alma's rippling wave;
Sleep on! sleep on! ye beautiful and brave

II.

Soon was thy warfare ended, thou young chief!
No weary, fitful story
Of years of toil for hours of glory;
From off that field, thy first and last,
Thou at one bound hast pass'd
To fame! Ah, Fame, thou cheerest not our grief;
Pale are the brows and cold, where twines thy laurel-leaf.

III.

They saw Death beckon from the fierce hill-side,
As by the camp-fires' light
They watch'd that dreary night;
But when the morning broke
On a hundred batteries' blaze and smoke,
With bounding hearts they clear'd the shot-Iash'd tide,
Sprang at the cannon's throat, and wrestling died.

IV.

Sleep! calmly sleep! ye beautiful and brave!
By sacred lips the words are said,
Which soothe the living, bless the dead;
Heroes are buried where they fall, —
No funeral pomp or pall, —
A warrior's cloak is all; —
With this a brother in true soldier's grave
Folds the lov'd form he would have died to save.

V.

Sleeps now that brother, too — yet sleeps not there:
O cruel, fatal Chersonese!
Insatiate War! Must fell Disease
With Slaughter join to feed
Thy ever-growning greed?
The siege drags on; valour in vain may dare;
Weapons are mould'ring in the sickly air;
Reckless of shot and shell, ev'n lightest hearts despair.

VI.

Past is your pain and peril: sleep, ye brave!
Glory is yours, and rest!
But many a gentle breast
Shall shudder at your tale,
Many a blooming cheek grow pale;
While Faith shall turn bereav'd eyes from the grave,
To Him who only taketh what He gave,
Whose Holiest came to suffer and to save;
In Him sleep on! ye beautiful and brave!