CRUEL and wild the battle:
Great horses plunged and reared,
And through dust-cloud and smoke-cloud,
Blood-red with sunset’s angry flush,
You heard the gun-shots rattle,
And, ‘mid hoof-tramp and rush,
The shrieks of women speared.
For it was Russ and Turkomen,-
No quarter asked or given;
A whirl of frenzied hate and death
Across the desert driven.
Look! the half-naked horde gives way,
Fleeing frantic without breath,
Or hope, or will; and on behind
The troopers storm, in blood-thirst blind,
While, like a dreadful fountain-play,
The swords flash up, and fall, and slay-
Wives, grandsires, baby brows and gray,
Groan after groan, yell upon yell-
Are men but fiends, and is earth hell?
Nay, for out of the flight and fear
Spurs a Russian cuirassier;
In his arms a child he bears.
Her little foot bleeds; stern she stares
Back at the ruin of her race.
The small hurt creature sheds no tear,
Nor utters cry; but clinging still
To this one arm that does not kill,
She stares back with her baby face.
Apart, fenced round with ruined gear,
The hurrying horseman finds a space,
Where, with face crouched upon her knee,
A woman cowers. You see him stoop
And reach the child down tenderly,
Then dash away to join his troop.
How came one pulse of pity there-
One heart that would not slay, but save-
In all that Christ-forgotten sight?
Was there, far north by Neva’s wave,
Some Russian girl in sleep-robes white,
Making her peaceful evening prayer,
That Heaven’s great mercy ‘neath its care
Would keep and cover him to-night?
(Edward Rowland Sill)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, War & Peace Poems, Faces Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Cry Poems, Hope Poems, Woman Poems, Prayers Poems, Hell Poems, Space Poems, Babies PoemsBased on Keywords: grandsires, neva, cowers, half-naked, russ, dust-cloud, speared, smoke-cloud, blood-thirst, cuirassier