Silent and grim on the trampled sand,
His rifle grasped in his stiffened hand,
With the warrior pride of one who died
'Mid a ring of the dead and the dying.

And still when twilight shadows fall,
After the evening bugle call,
In bivouac or in barrack-hall,
His comrades speak of the Corporal,
His death and his devotion.
And there are some who like to say
That perhaps a hidden meaning lay
In the words he spoke, and that the day
When his rough bold spirit passed away
WAS the day that he won promotion.



A FORGOTTEN TALE



[The scene of this ancient fight, recorded by Froissart, is still
called 'Altura de los Inglesos.' Five hundred years later
Wellington's soldiers were fighting on the same ground.]

'Say, what saw you on the hill,
Campesino Garcia?'
'I saw my brindled heifer there,
A trail of bowmen, spent and bare,