undred men of Britain's best had signed with blood the story
Which England leaves to time, and lay there scanted e'en of glory.

Stewart Smith lay smiling by the gun he spiked before he died;
But gallant Gardner lived to write a warning and to ride
A race for England's honour and to cross the Buffalo,
To bid them at Rorke's Drift expect the coming of the foe.

That band of lusty British lads camped in the hostile land
Rose up upon the word with Chard and Bromhead to command;
An hour upon the foe that hardy race had barely won,
But in it all that men could do those British lads had done.

And when the Zulus on the hill appeared, a dusky host,
They found our gallant English boys' 'pale faces' at their post;
But paler faces were behind, within the barricade--
The faces of the sick who rose to give their watchers aid.

Five men to one the first dark wave of battle brought, it bore
Down swiftly, while our youngsters waited steadfast as the shore;
Behind the slender barricade, half-hidden, on their knees,
They marked the stealthy current glide beneath the orchard trees.

Then forth the volley blazed, then rose the deadly reek of war;
The dusky ranks were thinned; the chieftain slain by young Dunbar,
Rolled headlong and their phalanx broke, but formed as soon as broke,
And with a yell the furies that avenge man's blood awoke.

The swarthy wave sped on and on, pressed forward by the tide,
Which rose above the bleak hill-top, and swept the bleak hill-side;
It rose upon the hill, and, surging out about its base,
Closed house and barricade within its murderous embrace.

With savage faces girt, the lads' frail fortress seemed to be
An island all abloom within a black and howling sea;
And only that the savages shot wide, and held the noise
As deadly as the bullets, they had overwhelmed the boys.

Then in the dusk of day the dusky Kaffirs crept about
The bushes and the prairie-grass, to rise up with a shout,
To step as in a war-dance, all together, and to fling
Their weight against the sick-house till they made its timbers spring.

When beaten back, they struck their shields, and thought to strike
with fear
Those British hearts,--their answer came, a ringing British cheer!
And the volley we sent after showed the Kaffirs to their cost
The coolness of our temper,--scarce an ounce of shot was lost.

And the sick men from their vantage at the windows singled out
From among the valiant savages the bravest of the rout;
A