| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The Private of the Buffs |
| | | Sir Francis Hastings Doyle |
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| LAST night, among his fellow roughs, | |
| He jested, quaff’d, and swore: | |
| A drunken private of the Buffs, | |
| Who never look’d before. | |
| To-day, beneath the foeman’s frown, | 5 |
| He stands in Elgin’s place, | |
| Ambassador from Britain’s crown, | |
| And type of all her race. | |
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| Poor, reckless, rude, lowborn, untaught, | |
| Bewilder’d, and alone, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| Shall England come to shame. | |
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| Far Kentish hop-fields round him seem’d, | |
| Like dreams, to come and go; | |
| Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleam’d, | |
| One sheet of living snow; | 20 |
| The smoke, above his father’s door, | |
| In gray soft eddyings hung: | |
| Must he then watch it rise no more, | |
| Doom’d by himself, so young? | |
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| Yes, honor calls!—with strength like steel | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, | |
| To his red grave he went. | |
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| Vain, mightiest fleets, of iron fram’d; | |
| Vain, those all-shattering guns; | |
| Unless proud England keep, untam’d, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
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