The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-08 00:00:00

DELHI-(1 d 57).
By W. CuArus KENT, Author of " Alothoia."

Groat God) roll out thy thunders—strow the lightnings of

thy wrath !
From thy red right hand of terror scatter death•dooms on

thy path
At thy swift, avenging advent, smiting down to Delhi's dust
Yonder heathen horde of demons, black with crimes of blood

and lust I
Arise, 0 God of Armies, Lord of Hosts, and Lord of War—
'Rise and hurl this darker Dacron from its hell-drawn idol-car !
For above the roar of carnage, boom of cannon, crash of drums,
Sword-like thro' the deadly tumult, Hark ! one piercing echo
comes—

Comes in accents, Ah ! so woful, so thrilling—sad—forlorn,
Not Roland blew more plaintive tones thro' Roncevalle's wild

horn !
God ! it is the voice of woman raised in wailings of despair,
Of the Virgin and the Matron, of the gentle and the fair :
God ! it is the doleful anguish ringing shrill from maiden lips
When the glory of her day-dawn darkens with a dire eclipse.
By the memory of om: Mothers, by the pure love of our Wives—
Up ! Husbands, Fathers, Brothers : not a thought now for

our lives.
Let us draw tho brand of vengeance, let us march with
smothered breath,
March upon you' hell of devils, though it be the march of death.
Away with dreams of Mercy—fling the scabbard far away :,
But One duty lies before us—'tis to rush upon the fray
To vindicate the grandeur of a Holy Name reviled,
To wash with blond and purge with fire a sacred shrine
defiled—

That shrine the shrine of Chastity, that name the name of God,
A holy name, a sacred shrine, revered o'er Earth's green sod;
Hallowed in every region, by every race and ago,
By thoughtless savages not less than by the brooding sage.
Yet There I desecrated, spat upon, p Anted, jeered,
abhorred
By the vilest Hindoo villain that e'er cringed before his Lord—
Down the p4,,an streets at noonday, trailed in the slough of

crime,
Thro' unutterable horrors unimagined till the time

When that Bengal Saturnalia seemed to mock the evil dream
Of the Seer-like Tuscan poet who had sailed the Awful Stream.
God 1. can we muse one moment over agonies like these,
Nor swear with blanched and trembling lip, on lo wly-bended

knees,
Swear a knightly oath of honour, swear a manly plight of
truth,
Not to yield to drivelling dictates of most despicable ruth.
Swear--Vengeance for the Sinless,by the cross at every hilt !
Swear—Vengeance on the Guilty by the memory of their
guilt

On, then, ou for dreadftll Delhi—on to raze each grimly wall ;
On, to crush the tarnished temples where the bolts of Heaven
might fall,
Where God's fiery rain descending, as on Sodom's ancient
pride,

One might almost look to witness drawn fromlightnings thus
defied— .

Thus defied by crimes unnumbered, crimes that cry to Heaven
for doom,

With the tongues of murdered victims shrieking ghostlike
thro' the gloom.
Shades of little prattling children, yearling babes and women
fair,
Tender forms of youth and beauty, reverent ago with silvered
hair
All we hold most dear, most saintly, all wo guard viith love
complete
Haled like dogs thro' all that filth of vice, and spurned by
squalid feet !
0 Englishmen, 0 brothers—is tho fate these deeds demand,
One a Christian heart should shrink from, ono beneath a
Christian hand ?
No—calm Justice breathes the Sentence and tnsheathcs the
gleaming Steel
Listen awfully to her mandate—feeling still as men 'should
feel—

Listen ! Act ! in stern obedience, knowing well her words of
woe—

Driving liko a Dea,thfull tempest-shower of poison on the foe—
Fall among the sacred grave-mounds, in atear-like, dewy flood
Where sleep, huddled in the dust for aye, the daughters of
our blood !

Old England's outraged daughters, and that little infant band
Who never more may cull the flowers of the far off fatherland!
Avenge them, 0 brave Soldiers, 0 gallant hearts and true
Avenge them onthe herd those lives with damning stains im-
brue—
Those lives so innocent, so fair, so virginally white
Yet welling out in crimson streams that blacken where they
'light
Branding with infamy each brow in Nena Sahib's train
With the fiend-brand of Gomorrah and the infamy of Cain.
Sweep the dastards from the daylight, tread them down into
.113 mire,
Rid the globe of their accursed throng by deaths more swift
than dire :

Draw a line about their city—let a desert tell its lot

Remember, we're the sons of sires Clive tutored at Arcot
We have learnt the grand old lesson how to conquer when we
may
_

Since the student-hero led the rout from the mangoes o
Plassey— _ .

Thro' all those glorious memories of Asian Victories won
By the axe of the proconsul, 'neath th' imperial gonfauon.