ISANDULA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 130, 2 June 1879, Page 2

ISANDULA.

" The colors of the 24th Regiment were found wrapped round the body of Lieiite'nant Melville."— (Letter from the Cape;) . On the bare hill side our thin line stood, And we heard the ceaseless hum Of their thousands forming behind the wood, Till the mass rolled thundering down like a flood, Then we knew that our hour was come. Three hundred broad and a hundred deep, On the black ruin came, Nor one instant stayed its forward sweep, Though the beards of the first, through our ranks to leap , Were scorched by our rifles' flame. What could we do who were so few, And they so many ? We died, Each in his place. As the felled trunks strew The spot where the forest thickest grew, So strewed we that bare hillside. Never before, since that fatal day, A hundred years ago, When at Fontenoy the dense array Of France swept our shot-torn ranks away, Had our flag been seized by a foe. Never before! nor now — The two Sprang forth whom our Chief's last breath Had bidden their way through the press to hew; Once clear, those two, full well he knew, Would guard their trust to the death. And death within them they bore, but kept Their colors untouched by the foe, Though fast by their heels the swart bloodhounds leapt, Though deadly volleys around them swept— As they breasted the flood below. Stark and cold they were found in the glen, In our colors wrapt, like a shroud. We looked at each other in silence, and then Looked down on those two brave Englishmen, And, somehow, we all felt proud. Nelson, June 2, 1879.