Chapter CCVI: The Residency Churchyard

From domes and palaces I bent my way
Where, like some Titan by Jove’s thunder marred,
From the old battered portal-towers that guard
The storied ruins of a glorious fray.
In patient stillness house and bastion lay,
As they had fallen; for the fight was hard
That saw their walls by myriad bullets scarred,
When those few steadfast warriors stood at bay.
There, by the English tombs of those that fell
In that fierce struggle ’twixt the East and West,
A few green mounds are seen, where peaceful rest
India’s brave sons who perished fighting well
For England too. What heart its feud can keep
Beside these graves where our dark comrades sleep?

_William Trego Webb._