14.  The two-and-thirty; i.e., another of the enemy’s ships, carrying thirty-two guns.

C. BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Charles Wolfe (b. 1791, d. 1823), an Irish poet and clergyman, was born in Dublin.  He was educated in several schools, and graduated at the university of his native city.  He was ordained in 1817, and soon became noted for his zeal and energy as a clergyman.  His literary productions were collected and published in 1825.  “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” one of the finest poems of its kind in the English language, was written in 1817, and first appeared in the “Newry Telegraph,” a newspaper, with the author’s initials, but without his knowledge.  Byron said of this ballad that he would rather be the author of it than of any one ever written.

1.  Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
     As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
   Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
     O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

2.  We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
     The sods with our bayonets turning,
   By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light,
     And the lantern dimly burning.

3.  No useless coffin inclosed his breast,
     Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
   But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
     With his martial cloak around him.

4.  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 of the morrow.

5.  We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
     And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
   That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
     And we far away on the billow!

6.  Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone
     And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him;
   But little he’ll reck, if they’ll let him sleep on
     In a grave where a Briton has laid him.

7.  But half of our heavy task was done,
     When the clock struck the hour for retiring
   And we heard the distant random gun
     That the foe was sullenly firing.

8.  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!

Definitions.—­3.  Mar’tial (pro. mar’shal), military. 6.  Up-braid’, to charge with something wrong or disgraceful, to reproach.  Reck, to take heed, to care. 7.  Ran’dom, without fixed aim or purpose, left to chance.

Note.—­Sir John Moore (b. 1761, d. 1809) was a celebrated British general.  He was appointed commander of the British forces in Spain, in the war against Napoleon, and fell at the battle of Corunna, by a cannon shot.  Marshal Soult, the opposing French commander, caused a monument to be erected to his memory.  The British government has also raised a monument to him in St. Paul’s Cathedral, while his native city, Glasgow, honors him with a bronze statue.