Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

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662	OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.



Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, As his corse to the ramparts we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave, where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, The turf with our bayonets turning, By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lanterns dimly burning. Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, And we bitterly thought on the morrow. No useless coffin confined his breast; Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him — But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him!		We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow, [head, That the foe or the stranger would tread o'er his And we far away on the billow. Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him — But nothing he'll reck if they'll let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him! But half our heavy task was done, When the clock tolled the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory — We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory 1