THIN glancing threads of English horse,

Why do your haughty trumpets wake?

Through yon grey myriads, massed in force,

None but the mad could hope to break!

'Men may be mad, or men be wise,

But not with us the question lies;

Although we guess not their intent,

This one thing well we know,

That, where the Light Brigade is sent,

The Light Brigade will go.'

What need to tell

Of splintering shell,

Of cannon-shot, and rifle-ball!

The death-hail smites them, one and all,

Through smoke that wraps them like a pall,

As raindrops, each and each, they fall.

Horse rolls o'er horse,

Corse hideth corse,

The gaps grow wide, and wider,

Deep-wounded men

Crawl back agen;

Steeds rush without a rider:

But still against the wondering foe,

In stubborn silence forward go

Unchecked, unslackening, undismayed,

The living of the Light Brigade,

Till that wild onset over-bears

The guns in front, one moment theirs.

Sudden and sharp the halt is made,

They seem, in mute reproach, to say,

'Your orders have been now obeyed,

As far as in us lay;

Yours are these guns, with life-blood red.

But can ye hold them by the dead?'

Meanwhile the cannon, from each hill,

Keep showering slaughter on them still,

All paths with death are lined;

Dense columns bar their onward course,

And long blue streaks of Russian horse,

Like nets, are spread behind.

That shattered remnant pauses there,

Blown chargers, wounded men:

Oh! they will break, like yielding air

And who shall blame them then

Not so through that bewildered throng

Like fire the leaders glance along

From rank to rank; too far to hear,

We seem to feel an English cheer;

Whilst Fancy, from each blade waved high,

Each gesture fierce, and flashing eye,

Can proud words, such as these, supply:—

'Gather ye, gather ye, close up once more!

Swords red to the wristband, hearts steel to the core,

Lance, sabre, and carbine, dragoon and Cossack,

Are strong to the sight, but they dare not attack;

No cutting, give point, were they twenty to one,

Men who wait to be charged, when we gallop, will run!'

They gather, they gather, they close up once more,

Swords red to the wristband, hearts steel to the core,

Though wide wounds may weaken, though horses may blow,

They have pace enough left for a dash at the foe;

Then, as hawks might swoop down through the toils of a spider,

Right at the blue line goes each horse and his rider.

It is rent like a rag, burst like bubbles asunder,

Whilst down from each height roars redoubled the thunder;

Still unstayed and unbroken, they cut their way through,

Past spears that outflank them, from swords that pursue.

With cannon and riflemen hot on their track,

Destroyed, but unconquered, we welcome them back:

Not a man in that death-charge his chief hath forsaken,

And the guns which ye flung them at— were they not taken?

And though, beneath yon fatal hill,

Their dead the valley strew,

Grimly, with cold hands, clutching still

The broken swords they drew,

We will not call their lives ill spent,

If to all time they show,

That where the Light Brigade was sent,

The Light Brigade would go.