The Battle of Roleia

Ye children of the veterans
Who fought for faithless Spain,
And for ungrateful Portugal
Pour’d out their blood like rain,—
Come near me, and hear me,
For I would tell you well
How gallantly your fathers fought,
Or gloriously they fell!

I sing Roleia's bloody strife,
The first of many frays
When iron Wellesley led us on
Invincible always:
Roleia gay and evergreen,
Festooned with vines and flowers,
Roleia, scorch’d and blood bedewed,—
And half that blood was our’s!

The seventeenth of August I
It shone out bright and clear,
And still we press’d the Frenchman’s flank
And hung upon his rear;
From Brilos and Obidos
Had we driven the bold Laborde,
And now among the mountain rocks
We sought him with the sword!

All golden is the plain with wheat,
All purple are the hills
With luscious vineyards ripe and sweet,
And laced with crystal rills;
Yet must the rills run down with gore,
The corn be trampled red,
Before Roleia’s threshing-floor
1s glutted with her dead!

0 cheerily the bugles spoke,
And all our hearts beat high
When ever Monte Junto broke
The sun upon the sky;
Right early from Obidos
We gladly sallied then
A goodly host, in columns three
Of fourteen thousand men.

Brave Ferguson led on the left,
And Trant the flanking right,
With iron ur in the midst,
The focus of the fight;
And fast by Wellesley’s gallant side
The Crauford rode amain,
And Hill, the British soldier's pride,
And Nightingale, and Fans.

Crouching like a. tiger
In his high and rocky lair,
The Frenchman howled and showed his teeth
And—wished he wasn’t there;
For Crauford, Hill, and Nightingale
Flew at him as he lay,
And up our gallant fellows sprang
As bloodhounds on the prey!

And look! we hunt the bold Laborde
To Zambugeira's height,—
While Trant with Fane and Ferguson
Outflank him left and right;
And then with cheers we charge the front,
With cheers the foe reply.—
No child's play was that battle brunt,
We swore to win or die!

Rattled loud the muskets’ roar,—
We struggled man to man,—
The rugged rocks were washed in gore,
With gore the gullies r
Fiercely through those mountain paths
Our bloody way we force,—
And find in strength upon the heights
The Frenchman, foot and horse.

Ah, then, my Ninth, and Twenty-ninth,
Your courage was too hot,
For down on your disordered ranks
Secure they pour the shot;
But all their horse and foot and guns
Could never make you fly,—
The losing Frenchman fights and runs,
But Britons fight—and die!

Up to the rescue, Ferguson!
And keep the hard-fought hill;
The chiefs are picked off, one by one,
And lo, they rally still;
They rally, and rush stoutly on,—
The bold Laborde gives way,—
The day is lost! the day is won!
And ours is the day!

Then well retreating sage and slow
Alternately in mass
With charging horse, the wily foe
Gains Runa’s rocky pass;
And left us thus Roleia‘s field,
With other fields in store,
Vimiera, Torres Vedras,
And half a hundred more!

[Extract]