WARNING: Portions of this poem may not be politically correct.
This is old - I got it from a collection dated 1886. A news clipping reproduced with it tells the story of an English private, captured along with some Indian soldiers serving in China with the British army. Given the choice between death and doing the kow-tow to the Chinese war lord, the Brit would not bow.
THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS; * OR, THE
BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA.
(*The Buffs are the East Kent Regiment)
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 ax 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.
SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE
This is old - I got it from a collection dated 1886. A news clipping reproduced with it tells the story of an English private, captured along with some Indian soldiers serving in China with the British army. Given the choice between death and doing the kow-tow to the Chinese war lord, the Brit would not bow.
THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS; * OR, THE
BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA.
(*The Buffs are the East Kent Regiment)
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 ax 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.
SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE