[David Anthony]

Here's a poem that popped into my head the other day: forgotten for most of my life, but still known mostly by heart. I'm thinking I'm probably the only person in the world who could recite it from memory, having learned it as a schoolboy. I'd forgotten the author, and he has not survived the test of time.
I'm wondering if anybody else sees any merit in it?
Regards,
David

Turkey in Europe, and the Principalities
Kacelyevo
The Last Redoubt
Alfred Austin (1835–1913)



KACELYEVO’S slope still felt
The cannon’s bolts and the rifles’ pelt;
For a last redoubt up the hill remained,
By the Russ yet held, by the Turk not gained.

Mehemet Ali stroked his beard;
His lips were clinched and his look was weird;
Round him were ranks of his ragged folk,
Their faces blackened with blood and smoke.

“Clear me the Muscovite out!” he cried.
Then the name of “Allah!” echoed wide,
And the fezzes were waved and the bayonets lowered,
And on to the last redoubt they poured.

One fell, and a second quickly stopped
The gap that he left when he reeled and dropped;
The second,—a third straight filled his place;
The third,—and a fourth kept up the race.

Many a fez in the mud was crushed,
Many a throat that cheered was hushed,
Many a heart that sought the crest
Found Allah’s arms and a houri’s breast.

Over their corpses the living sprang,
And the ridge with their musket-rattle rang,
Till the faces that lined the last redoubt
Could see their faces and hear their shout.

In the redoubt a fair form towered,
That cheered up the brave and chid the coward;
Brandishing blade with a gallant air,
His head erect and his bosom bare.

“Fly! they are on us!” his men implored;
But he waved them on with his waving sword.
“It cannot be held; ’t is no shame to go!”
But he stood with his face set hard to the foe.

Then clung they about him, and tugged, and knelt;
He drew a pistol from out his belt,
And fired it blank at the first that set
Foot on the edge of the parapet.

Over that first one toppled: but on
Clambered the rest till their bayonets shone;
As hurriedly fled his men dismayed,
Not a bayonet’s length from the length of his blade.

“Yield!” But aloft his steel he flashed,
And down on their steel it ringing clashed;
Then back he reeled with a bladeless hilt,
His honor full, but his life-blood spilt.

They lifted him up from the dabbled ground;
His limbs were shapely and soft and round,
No down on his lip, on his cheek no shade,—
“Bismillah!” they cried, “’t is an infidel maid!”

Mehemet Ali came and saw
The riddled breast and the tender jaw.
“Make her a bier of your arms,” he said,
“And daintily bury this dainty dead!

“Make her a grave where she stood and fell,
’Gainst the jackal’s scratch and the vulture’s smell.
Did the Muscovite men like their maidens fight,
In their lines we had scarcely supped to-night.”

So a deeper trench ’mong the trenches there
Was dug, for the form as brave as fair;
And none, till the judgment trump and shout,
Shall drive her out of the Last Redoubt.

[Ann Drysdale]

David - can you edit out the numbers? I found myself reading them aloud as part of the lines.

[Michael Cantor]

I think that's the least of the problem. I'm a Kipling guy - but this isn't Kipling. It's dreadful. And some quick googling (I've never heard of Austin) indicates at least some of his contemporaries felt the same way.

[Chris O'Carroll]

As long as Colley Cibber is remembered, Austin will never be the sole contender for the title of worst Laureate ever.

[David Anthony]

I think the first half of the poem is a strong, vigorous narrative. The second half is pretty execrable, though.
Michael, as Chris says, Austin is famous in his own way, being a contender for the worst British Poet Laureate.
I think this poem must have been pretty well known 50 years ago, since I was required to learn it at school, but I had to search for a while the other day before I found it on the internet.

[Jerome Betts]

And Laurence Eusden, Chris.

[Gregory Dowling]

Austin presumably got the story from here .

It is a little sub-Kipling, although I agree that the opening stanzas have a certain vigour. Perhaps more Newbolt than Kipling.

Just by way of comparison, here are some stanzas from Don Juan, on another battle between Turks and Russians. It comes from the end of Canto VIII, after the fall of Ismail to the Russians:

CXX.

But the stone bastion still kept up its fire,
Where the chief Pasha calmly held his post:
Some twenty times he made the Russ retire,
And baffled the assaults of all their host;
At length he condescended to inquire
If yet the city's rest were won or lost;
And being told the latter, sent a Bey
To answer Ribas' summons to give way.

CXXI.

In the mean time, cross-legged, with great sang-froid,
Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking
Tobacco on a little carpet (Troy
Saw nothing like the scene around), yet looking
With martial stoicism. Nought seemed to annoy
His stern philosophy; but gently stroking
His beard, he puffed his pipe's ambrosial gales,
As if he had three lives, as well as tails.

CXXII.

The town was taken. Whether he might yield
Himself or bastion little mattered now;
His stubborn valour was no future shield.
Ismail's no more. The crescent's silver bow
Sunk, and the crimson Cross glared o'er the field,
But red with no redeeming gore: the glow
Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water,
Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter.

CXXIII.

All that the mind would shrink from of excesses,
All that the body perpetrates of bad,
All that we read, hear, dream, of man's distresses,
All that the devil would do if run stark mad,
All that defies the worst which pen expresses,
All by which hell is peopled, or as sad
As hell, mere mortals who their power abuse,
Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.

[David Anthony]

Thanks for the link, Gregory.

I was fascinated to learn that Austin had the story from an article in 'The Times'. His poem has that in common with the preceding Poet Laureate's 'Charge of the Light Brigade'.

I was also interested to learn, from further research, that Mehmet Ali was a naturalised Turkish citizen and a German by birth.

From my recollection L3 of S3 should be:
'And the rifles were clutched and the bayonets lowered'
I was pleased to see that this is the version on PoemHunter since I thought my memory was playing tricks.

This would have been intended as a recitation piece, from a time when everybody was expected to have at least one (a tradition that survived to my childhood) and I'm sure it was very popular as such.

[John Whitworth]

Is he the one who wrote:

Across the wire the electric message came.
'She is no better. She is much the same.'

[David Anthony]

Indeed he is, John.
It puzzles me that nobody sees it as ironic.
Regards,
David