["Some Seiks, and a private of the Buffs, having remained behind with the grog carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese.  On the next day they were brought before the authorities and ordered to perform Kotou.  The Seiks obeyed, but Moyse, the English soldier, declared he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, and was immediately knocked upon the head, and his body thrown upon a dunghill.”—­China Correspondent of the London Times.]

  Last night, among his fellow roughs,
    He jested, quaffed, and swore;
  A drunken private of the Buffs,
    Who never looked before. 
  To-day, beneath the foeman’s frown,
    He stands in Elgin’s place,
  Ambassador from Britain’s crown,
    And type of all her race.

  Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
    Bewildered, and alone,
  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
    Shall England come to shame.

  Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed,
    Like dreams, to come and go;
  Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed,
    One sheet of living snow;
  The smoke above his father’s door
    In gray soft eddyings hung;
  Must he then watch it rise no more,
    Doomed by himself so young?

  Yes, honor calls!—­with strength like steel
    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,
  Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,
    To his red grave he went.

  Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed,
    Vain those all-shattering guns,
  Unless proud England keep untamed
    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.

[Footnote A:  The “Buffs” are the East Kent Regiment.]

SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.

THE TURK IN ARMENIA.

FROM “THE PURPLE EAST.”

  What profits it, O England, to prevail
    In camp and mart and council, and bestrew
    With argosies thy oceans, and renew
  With tribute levied on each golden gale
  Thy treasuries, if thou canst hear the wail
    Of women martyred by the turbaned crew,
    Whose tenderest mercy was the sword that slew,
  And lift no hand to wield the purging flail? 
    We deemed of old thou held’st a charge from Him
    Who watches girdled by his seraphim,
  To smite the wronger with thy destined rod. 
    Wait’st thou his sign?  Enough, the unanswered cry
    Of virgin souls for vengeance, and on high
  The gathering blackness of the frown of God!