James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
January 16Burial of Sir John Moore
By Charles Wolfe (17911823)
N
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.
The sod with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
Not in sheet or in shroud we bound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him!
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him—
But little he’ll reck if they let him sleep on,
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we knew by the distant random gun,
That the foe was sullenly firing.
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone—
But we left him alone with his glory.