What best to do, where most to dare
The chances of uncertain war,
The Scottish host the ditch have crossed,
And gained their forward fighting post,
Unshattered and entire ;
Though there Prince Rupert's battle main
With threatening aspect held the plain
In clouds of smoke and fire;
Till Porter steeled his faithless heart,
And, feigning Valour's better part,
Gave order to retire.
With curses blent the order ran
From rank to rank, from man to man,
And stirred each stout Northumbrian
To stubbornness and ire.
Awhile they stood, in vengeful mood,
To dare the Scots' attack;
Till, glancing round, their rear they found
A hundred paces back;
Then stern and slow, with face to foe,
And pikes for onset laid,
Backward they drew to order new
Unbroken, undismayed.
THE CHARGE OF THE YORKSHIRE HORSE-MARSTON
AND now upon the Scottish right,
Where waved the plumed of Steeton's knight,
The Yorkshire townsmen waged the fight,
And push of pike essayed;
Their cry was, "God and Commonweal;
Their arms of their own native steel
By Sheffield's craftsmen made;
And task more hard than Crawford found
Was theirs to win the broken ground,
And face the furious fusillade
From hawthorn's living palisade,
And bank and ditch and ambuscade
By sturdy Borderers manned,
Who flew to war from Cheviot side,
When Leven crossed Tweed's border tide
To waste and wreck their land;
Their weapons rude but not untried,
Their coats, save with War's hues, undyed;
In close victorious fight, each stain
Was witness of a foeman slain
By fair Saint Mary's ruined pride,
Or where the embattled Bar the foe defied, And spread the swift alarm and sortie surging
'Twere long the mournful tale to tell,
How fast the struggling townsmen fell,
Yet pressed impetuous on
Their comrades through the treacherous broor
To win free space and fighting room,
Where stood, as carved in stone,
The long white ranks of pikemen mute,
And, motionless from comb to foot,
Their polished harness shone.
Serenely bright the sunbeams played
On levelled pikes for onset laid,
As streams through rift in forest shade
The last low ray by eve displayed,
When winds to rest are gone.
Yet think not that their stillness told
Of waning strength or valour cold;
Their aspect stern, defiant, proud,
More threatening than War's clamour loud,
Or gathering strength of thunder-cloud,
Their former victories betrayed,
And confidence in War's rude trade
To stay such shock alone.
With quivering lip and scornful eye
They marked the foe now streaming nigh,
And knew by sturdiness of limb,
And bronzed cheek and aspect grim,
And foot that swerved not in the rush
Or reckless bound through brake and bush,
The foremost of each daring band
Were dalesmen from the dark moorland,
Where Calder's infant waters leap
In silvery foam from many a steep;
And Aire in sparkling ripples spread
Dances along her sunlit bed;
And Wharfe in natural merriment
Leaps down from castled Pen-y-Gent;
And, hid in cloud, the modest Nidd
Creeps to the light on scarred Whernsydde,
And, to a brawling torrent grown,
Dashes impetuously down,
Till her wild eddies pent and tossed
In vast, abysmal caves are lost.
Amid such scenes of Nature's strife,
With struggle and endurance rife,
Stern hardihood might well have life,
And win its way where weaker nerve
From Danger's rugged path would swerve,
Breathless and faint from failing limb,
Or daunted by the phalanx grim.
No marvel then those dalesmen rude
Should win their way by hardihood,
And, foremost in the glittering line,
Leap in impetuous onset fine;
Nor linger till the main advance
Should give their charge more equal chance.
As leaps the foam, when tempests rave,
A stone's cast from the furious wave
That toils and struggles with the shore
Feeling its waning strength give o'er,
Then grimly hurls with dying throe
Defiance on its steadfast foe;
As foam in useless effort dashed,
Their onset on the whitecoats crashed,
A moment flashed, then died away,
And dyed the heather where they lay.
Nor might the labouring townsmen win
E'en touch of that tremendous line,
Instinct with wounds and death;
E'en as they toiled in breathless haste,
Wild Fairfax in full charge has passed,
Five thousand lifted swords have flashed,
Five thousand rushing steeds have dashed
To gain the open heath;
And loud o'er mingling tramp and din
Roared the deep-throated culverin;
And, sudden as the lightning's stroke,
From Urry's line the flash has broke,
Not in the long, unbroken stream
That bursts where modern bayonets gleam,
In volleys from the lengthened line,
When squadrons for the charge combine
In Crimean valleys green;
But in short bars of flame that sprung
The narrow-fronted squares along,
Yet left still space between;
Where Goring's horse, importunate,
In alternating squadrons wait
Command to give the rein,
And on the wavering onset fall,
Where, rent and riven by shot and ball, Their shattered front was seen.
And oh,-such fitful anger shone
Beneath each glittering morion,
Such battle-glow was there;
As, when upon her bloody lea,
The Crecy light of victory
Bade venturous foes "Beware;"
Nor wake upon thy fields once more
That deathless shout, O Agincourt,
That tells of England's war.
So, centuries of England's fame
Flashed from those eyes of living flame,
A birthright pride in battles won
Bequeathed by knightly sire to son;
And centuries of hopes subdued
Toiled in that broken onset's flood,
Instinct with memories of ill
And countless deeds of lordly will.
And, in the front full pikes' lengths three, Urry and Lucas dauntlessly
In careless silence sate,
And with uplifted hand subdued
The torment of their furious mood,
And frenzy at their fate.
Nor long their task, with sudden thrill
The clarion's note resounding shrill
Gave freedom to each fretting will
To try the sword's debate.
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