StoryTitle("caps", "The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna") ?>
Burial of Sir John Moore" was one of my reading-lessons when I
was a child. A distinguished teacher says: "It has become a part of popular
education," as has also "The Eve of Waterloo" and "The Death of Napoleon."
They are all poems of great rhythmical swing, intense
and graphic. (1791-1823.)
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As his corse to the rampart we hurried;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "O'er the grave where our hero we buried.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We buried him darkly at dead of night,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The sods with our bayonets turning;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And the lantern dimly burning.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "No useless coffin enclosed his breast,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "With his martial cloak around him.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Few and short were the prayers we said,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And we spoke not a word of sorrow;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And we bitterly thought of the morrow.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And smoothed down his lonely pillow,", "") ?>
PagePoem(177, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And we far away on the billow!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In the grave where a Briton has laid him.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But half of our heavy task was done", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "When the clock struck the hour for retiring;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And we heard the distant and random gun", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "That the foe was sullenly firing.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Slowly and sadly we laid him down,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "From the field of his fame fresh and gory;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "But we left him alone with his glory!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("C. Wolfe.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>