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| STEEP is the soldier’s path; nor are the heights | |
| Of glory to be won without long toil | |
| And arduous efforts of enduring hope, | |
| Save when Death takes the aspirant by the hand, | |
| And, cutting short the work of years, at once | 5 |
| Lifts him to that conspicuous eminence. | |
| Such fate was mine. The standard of the Buffs | |
| I bore at Albuera, on that day | |
| When, covered by a shower, and fatally | |
| For friends misdeemed, the Polish lancers fell | 10 |
| Upon our rear. Surrounding me, they claimed | |
| My precious charge. “Not but with life!” I cried, | |
| And life was given for immortality. | |
| The flag which to my heart I held, when wet | |
| With that heart’s blood, was soon victoriously | 15 |
| Regained on that great day. In former times | |
| Marlborough beheld it borne at Ramilies; | |
| For Brunswick and for liberty it waved | |
| Triumphant at Culloden; and hath seen | |
| The lilies on the Caribbean shores | 20 |
| Abashed before it. Then, too, in the front | |
| Of battle did it flap exultingly, | |
| When Douro, with its wide stream interposed, | |
| Saved not the French invaders from attack, | |
| Discomfiture, and ignominious rout. | 25 |
| My name is Thomas: undisgraced have I | |
| Transmitted it. He who in days to come | |
| May bear the honored banner to the field, | |
| Will think of Albuera, and of me. | |
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