XCIV

Nineteenth Century, March 1878; Ballads and other Poems, 1880. By permission of Messrs. Macmillan, to whom I am indebted for some of my choicest numbers. For the story of Sir Richard Grenville's heroic death, 'in the last of August,' 1591—after the Revenge had endured the onset of 'fifteen several armadas,' and received some 'eight hundred shot of great artillerie,'—see Hakluyt (1598-1600), ii. 169-176, where you will find it told with singular animation and directness by Sir Walter Raleigh, who held a brief against the Spaniards in Sir Richard's case as always. To Sir Richard's proposal to blow up the ship the master gunner 'readily condescended,' as did 'divers others'; but the captain was of 'another opinion,' and in the end Sir Richard was taken aboard the ship of the Spanish admiral, Don Alfonso de Bazan, who used him well and honourably until he died: leaving to his friends the 'comfort that being dead he hath not outlived his own honour,' and that he had nobly shown how false and vain, and therefore how contrary to God's will, the 'ambitious and bloudie practices of the Spaniards' were.

XCV

Tiresias and Other Poems, 1885. By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. Included at Lord Tennyson's own suggestion. For the noble feat of arms (25th October 1854) thus nobly commemorated, see Kinglake (v. i. 102-66). 'The three hundred of the Heavy Brigade who made this famous charge were the Scots Greys and the second squadron of Enniskillings, the remainder of the "Heavy Brigade" subsequently dashing up to their support. The "three" were Scarlett's aide-de-camp, Elliot, and the trumpeter, and Shegog the orderly, who had been close behind him.'—Author's Note.

XCVI, XCVII

The Return of the Guards, and other Poems, 1866. By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. As to the first, which deals with an incident of the war with China, and is presumably referred to in 1860, 'Some Seiks and a private of the Buffs (or East Kent Regiment) having remained behind with the grog-carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next morning they were brought before the authorities and commanded to perform the Ko tou. The Seiks obeyed; but Moyse, the English soldier, declaring that he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, was immediately knocked upon the head and his body thrown upon a dunghill.'—Quoted by the author from The Times. The Elgin of line 6 is Henry Bruce, eighth Lord Elgin (1811-1863), then Ambassador to China, and afterwards Governor-General of India. Compare Theology in Extremis (post, p. 309). Of the second, which Mr. Saintsbury describes 'as one of the most lofty, insolent, and passionate things concerning this matter that our time has produced,' Sir Francis notes that the incident—no doubt a part of the conquest of Sindh—was told him by Sir Charles Napier, and that 'Truckee' (line 12) = 'a stronghold in the Desert, supposed to be unassailable and impregnable.'

XCVIII, XCIX

By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. Dramatic Lyrics, 1845; Cornhill Magazine, June 1871, and Pacchiarotto, 1876, Works, iv. and xiv. I can find nothing about Herve Riel.

C-CIII

The two first are from the 'Song of Myself,' Leaves of Grass (1855); the others from Drum Taps (1865). See Leaves of Grass (Philadelphia, 1884), pp. 60, 62-63, 222, and 246.

CIV, CV

By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. Dated severally 1857 and 1859.

CVI

Edinburgh Courant, 1852. Compare The Loss of the 'Birkenhead' in The Return of the Guards, and other Poems (Macmillan, 1883), pp. 256-58. Of the troopship Birkenhead I note that she sailed from Queenstown on the 7th January 1852, with close on seven hundred souls on board; that the most of these were soldiers—of the Twelfth Lancers, the Sixtieth Rifles, the Second, Sixth, Forty-third, Forty-fifth, Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, and Ninety-first Regiments; that she struck on a rock (26th February 1852) off Simon's Bay, South Africa; that the boats would hold no more than a hundred and thirty-eight, and that, the women and children being safe, the men that were left—four hundred and fifty-four, all told—were formed on deck by their officers, and went down with the ship, true to colours and discipline till the end.

CVII-CIX

By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. From Empedocles on Etna (1853). As regards the second number, it may be noted that Sohrab, being in quest of his father Rustum, to whom he is unknown, offers battle as one of the host of the Tartar King Afrasiab, to any champion of the Persian Kai Khosroo. The challenge is accepted by Rustum, who fights as a nameless knight (like Wilfrid of Ivanhoe at the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Ashby), and so becomes the unwitting slayer of his son. For the story of the pair the poet refers his readers to Sir John Malcom's History of Persia. See Poems, by Matthew Arnold (Macmillan), i. 268, 269.

CX, CXI

Ionica (Allen, 1891). By permission of the Author. School Fencibles (1861) was 'printed, not published, in 1877.' The Ballad for a Boy, Mr. Cory writes, 'was never printed till this year.'

CXII

By permission of the Author. This ballad, which was suggested, Mr. Meredith tells me, by the story of Bendigeid Vran, the son of Llyr, in the Mabinogion (iii. 121-9), is reprinted from Modern Love (1862), but it originally appeared (circ. 1860) in Once a Week, a forgotten print the source of not a little unforgotten stuff—as Evan Harrington and the first part of The Cloister and the Hearth.

CXIII

From the fourth and last book of Sigurd the Volsung, 1877. By permission of the Author. Hogni and Gunnar, being the guests of King Atli, husband to their sister Gudrun, refused to tell him the whereabouts of the treasure of Fafnir, whom Sigurd slew; and this is the manner of their taking and the beginning of King Atli's vengeance.

CXIV

English Illustrated Magazine, January 1890, and Lyrical Poems (Macmillan, 1891). By permission of the Author: with whose sanction I have omitted four lines from the last stanza.

CXV

By permission of Sir Alfred Lyall. Cornhill Magazine, September 1868, and Verses Written in India (Kegan Paul, 1889). The second title is: A Soliloquy that may have been delivered in India, June 1857; and this is further explained by the following 'extract from an Indian newspaper':—'They would have spared life to any of their English prisoners who should consent to profess Mahometanism by repeating the usual short formula; but only one half-caste cared to save himself that way.' Then comes the description, Moriturus Loquitur, and next the poem.

CXVI-CXVIII

From Songs before Sunrise (Chatto and Windus, 1877), and the third series of Poems and Ballads (Chatto and Windus, 1889). By permission of the Author.

CXIX, CXX

The Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte (Chatto and Windus, 1886). By permission of Author and Publisher. The Reveille was spoken before a Union Meeting at San Francisco at the beginning of the Civil War and appeared in a volume of the Author's poems in 1867. What the Bullet Sang is much later work: dating, thinks Mr. Harte, from '79 or '80.

CXXI

St. James's Magazine, October 1877, and At the Sign of the Lyre (Kegan Paul, 1889). By permission of the Author.

CXXII

St. James's Gazette, 20th July 1888, and Grass of Parnassus (Longmans, 1888). By permission of Author and Publisher. Written in memory of Gordon's betrayal and death, but while there were yet hopes and rumours of escape.

CXXIII

Underwoods (Chatto and Windus, 1886). By permission of the Publishers.

CXXIV

Love's Looking-Glass (Percival, 1891). By permission of the Author.

CXXV

Macmillan's Magazine, November 1889. By permission of the Author. Kamal Khan is a Pathan; and the scene of this exploit—which, I am told, is perfectly consonant with the history and tradition of Guides and Pathans both—is the North Frontier country in the Peshawar-Kohat region, say, between Abazai and Bonair, behind which is stationed the Punjab Irregular Frontier Force—'the steel head of the lance couched for the defence of India.' As for the Queen's Own Corps of Guides, to the general 'God's Own Guides' (from its exclusiveness and gallantry), it comprehends both horse and foot, is recruited from Sikhs, Pathans, Rajputs, Afghans, all the fighting races, is officered both by natives and by Englishmen, and in all respects is worthy of this admirable ballad.

Ressaldar = the native leader of a ressala or troop of horse Tongue = a barren and naked strath—'what geologists call a fan' Gut of the Tongue = the narrowest part of the strath dust-devils = dust-clouds blown by a whirlwind

CXXVI

National Observer, 4th April 1891. At the burning of the Court-House at Cork, 'Above the portico a flagstaff bearing the Union Jack remained fluttering in the air for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in the incident.'—Daily Papers. Author's Note.



INDEX PAGE

A good sword and a trusty hand 207 All is finished! and at length 217 Alone stood brave Horatius 196 Amid the loud ebriety of war 264 And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said 280 Arm, arm, arm, arm! the scouts are all come in 13 As I was walking all alane 79 Ask nothing more of me, sweet 316 As the spring-tides, with heavy plash 153 At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay 227 At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay 232 Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise 200 Attend you, and give ear awhile 73 Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 28 A wet sheet and a flowing sea 148

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow! 257 Bid me to live, and I will live 18 Blow high, blow low, let tempests tear 89 Build me straight, O worthy Master 208 But by the yellow Tiber 183 But see! look up—on Flodden bent 116 By this, though deep the evening fell 119 Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in Arms 27 Come, all ye jolly sailors bold 92 Condemned to Hope's delusive mine 45 Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud 28

Darkly, sternly, and all alone 156 Day by day the vessel grew 214 Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark 146

Eleven men of England 244 England, queen of the waves, whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round 317 Erle Douglas on his milke-white steede 49

Fair stood the wind for France 6 Farewell! farewell! the voice you hear 133 Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong 95

Get up! get up for shame! The blooming morn 15 God prosper long our noble king 47 God who created me 328 Go fetch to me a pint o' wine 97 Good Lord Scroope to the hills is gane 64

Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be 147 Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands 322 He has called him forty Marchmen bold 69 Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling 90 He spoke, and as he ceased he wept aloud 272 He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts 267 He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood 275 High-spirited friend 12 How happy is he born or taught 11

I am the mashed fireman with breast-bone broken 254 If doughty deeds my lady please 88 If sadly thinking 91 I love contemplating, apart 140 In the ship-yard stood the Master 210 In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 136 Iphigeneia, when she heard her doom 138 I said, when evil men are strong 105 Is life worth living? Yes, so long 308 It is not growing like a tree 13 It is not to be thought of that the Flood 101 It is not yours, O mother, to complain 326 It was a' for our rightfu' King 99 I wish I were where Helen lies 77

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side 329 King Philip had vaunted his claims 324

Lars Porsena of Clusium 179 Last night, among his fellow-roughs 242

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour 102 Mortality, behold and fear 15 Much have I travelled in the realms of gold 179 My boat is on the shore 164 My dear and only love, I pray 31

Next morn the Baron climbed the tower 114 Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away 248 Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note 172 Now all the youth of England are on fire 2 Now entertain conjecture of a time 4 Now fell the sword of Gunnar, and rose up red in the air 297 Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose 304 Now we bear the king 10 Now while the Three were tightening 189 Now word is gane to the bold Keeper 67

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear 282 O Brignall banks are wild and fair 126 O England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high 260 Of Nelson and the North 144 O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend 1 Oft in the pleasant summer years 311 O have ye na heard o' the fause Sakelde 66 O how comely it is, and how reviving 31 O joy of creation 323 O Mary, at thy window be 98 Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee 100 On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred and ninety-two 248 Othere, the old sea-captain 223 Our English archers bent their bowes 51 O Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls 165 O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west 112

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu 129

Ruin seize thee, ruthless King 80

Should auld acquaintance be forgot 96 Simon Danz has come home again 228 Stern Daughter of the Voice of God 103 Still the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid 301 Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright 19

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind 32 The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold 150 The boy stood on the burning deck 175 The breaking waves dashed high 177 The captain stood on the carronade: 'First Lieutenant,' says he 174 The charge of the gallant three hundred, the Heavy Brigade 239 The fifteenth day of July 60 The forward youth that would appear 34 The glories of our birth and state 20 The herring loves the merry moonlight 131 The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece 167 The King sits in Dunfermline town 57 The last sunbeam 258 The Moorish King rides up and down 160 The newes was brought to Eddenborrow 56 The night is past, and shines the sun 151 The Sea! the Sea, the open Sea 149 The stag at eve had drunk his fill 121 The weary day rins down and dies 319 The winds were yelling, the waves were swelling 205 Then speedilie to wark we gaed 71 Then with a bitter smile, Rustum began 269 Then with a heavy groan, Rustum bewailed 277 This, this is he; softly a while 30 Through the black, rushing smoke bursts 265 Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies 3 Tiger, tiger, burning bright 94 'Tis time this heart should be unmoved 171 Toll for the Brave 85 To mute and to material things 107 To my true king I offered free from stain 206 To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claver'se who spoke 134 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won 40

Up from the meadows rich with corn 230

Vain is the dream! However Hope may rave 325

We come in arms, we stand ten score 284 Welcome, wild north-easter 262 When George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago 285 When I consider how my light is spent 29 When I have borne in memory what has tamed 101 When Love with unconfined wings 33 When the British warrior queen 86 When the head of Bran 290 Where the remote Bermudas ride 39 Why sitt'st thou by that ruined hall 130 Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro 335 With stout Erle Percy, there was slaine 54 Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight 255

Ye Mariners of England 143 Ye shall know that in Atli's feast-hall on the side that joined the house 293 Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more 21

THE END