And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s head, And the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife, And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life, When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children’s bones, Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and sea, War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and till, And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand, home! _Lord Tennyson._ DOYLE LXIX THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS Last night, among his fellow roughs, He jested, quaffed, and swore; A drunken private of the Buffs, Who never looked before. To-day, beneath the foeman’s frown, He stands in Elgin’s place, Ambassador from Britain’s crown, And type of all her race. Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, Bewildered, and alone, A heart, with English instinct fraught, He yet can call his own. Ay, tear his body limb from limb, Bring cord, or axe, or flame: He only knows, that not through _him_ Shall England come to shame. Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed, Like dreams, to come and go; Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed, One sheet of living snow; The smoke, above his father’s door, In grey soft eddyings hung: Must he then watch it rise no more, Doomed by himself, so young? Yes, honour calls!--with strength like steel He put the vision by. Let dusky Indians whine and kneel; An English lad must die. And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, With knee to man unbent, Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, To his red grave he went. Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed; Vain, those all-shattering guns; Unless proud England keep, untamed, The strong heart of her sons. So, let his name through Europe ring-- A man of mean estate, Who died, as firm as Sparta’s king, Because his soul was great. _Sir Francis Hastings Doyle._ BROWNING LXX HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD