John Reade (1837–1919)

(Written on the occasion of the Balaclava Festival)

OH! say not that the chivalry

That our brave fathers led

To noble deeds of bravery,

In us their sons is dead!

For the same blood that leaped of yore

Upon the battle-plains

Of Crécy and of Agincourt,

Still leaps within our veins.

The times are changed; the arts of peace

Are cherished more than then,

But, until wars for ever cease,

Our country shall have men

To draw the sword for country’s good,

To battle for the right,

To shed their heart’s best drop of blood

In many a hard-fought fight.

All honour to the good and brave

Who fought in days of old,

And shame upon the sordid knave

Whose heart ’s so dull and cold

As not to feel an honest glow

Of patriotic pride,

When he is told that long ago

Such heroes lived and died.

Then let us to their memory give

A grateful, manly thought,

And, if we prize them, let us live

As nobly as they fought;

Each life is but a battle-field,

The Wrong against the Right.

Then think, when Right to Wrong would yield,

Of Balaclava’s fight.