Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1890-06-14
THE LAST OF TIE LIGHT BRIGADE

"Twenty-four pounds represented the re
sponse SO far of the British public to the appea
made by the committee for funds to enable pro-
vision to be made for the declining days of the
survivors of the Balaklava Charge who are
known to have come to misery and want, and
whose number now scarcely exceeds twenty"
There were thirty million English who talked
of Englands might;
There were twenty brOk en- troopers who lacked
bed for night.
They had neither food nor money; they had
neither service nor trade
They were only shiftless soldiers-the last OF
the Light Brigade.
They felt that life was fleeing; they knew moi
art was long,
Or, though they were dying of famine. they
lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money, to keep the vol
from the door,
And the thirty million English sent twenty
ponds and four
They laid their heads together, that were
Scared and lined with gray
Keen were the Russian sabres but want was
keener than they;
And an old troop sergeant muttered, Lets SO
to the man who writes
The things on Balak lava the Riddles at school
rectes."
They went without band or coors--a regiment
ten-file strong
To look for the master singer who had crowned
them all in his song;
And waiting his servants order. by the garden
gate they stayed
A desolate little cluster-the last of the Light
Brigade.
They strove to stand to attention, to straighten
the tOil-bowed back
They drilled empty stomach-the loose
knit files fell slack
With STOPPING of weary shoulders, in garments
tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence-the last of
the Light Brigade.
The old troop sergeant was spokesman, and,
"Beggin' your pardon he said
You wrote the Light Brigade, sir. Here's
all that isn't dead.
An it's all come true what you wrote sir, re-
gardin' the mouth of he'll;
For we're all of us nigh to the work house, an
thought we'd call an tell.
mo, thank you; we don't want food, sir; but
couldn't you take an write
A sort of TO be continued, an see next page o.
the fight?
We think some one has Numbered, an cOuldn' t
YOU tell 'em how?
You wrote were heroes once, sir, Please
write, I'VE are starving now"
The poor little army departed, lmping and
lean and fororn,
And the heart of the master singer grew hot
with the 'scorn of scOrn";
And he wrote for them wOndrOuS verses that
swept the land like flame
Till the fatted souls OF the English were
scourged with thing called shame.
They sent check to the felOn that sprang. from
an Irish bog
They healed the spawned cab-horse, they
housed the homeless dog;
And they sent (you may call me n lar), when
rebel and beast were paid,
A check for enough to live on, to .he last of
the Light Brigade.
o, thirty million English that babbe of Eng
lands might, ~
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their
food to night
Our children's children are lisping to honor
the charge they made"
And we leave to the streets and the work house
the charge of the Light Brigade.
-RUDYARD kIPLING,
tOid soldiers of America, does not the senti-
ment expressed in the above about tit your
case? The powers that he in this country
are just as neglectful of the nations defenders
as are the English ED.