Classic Poem

Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
— Burial of Sir John Moore.

Not a sound was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his carcass through town we hurried;
Not e'en an obituary we wrote,
In respect for the rascal we buried.

We buried him darkly, at dead of night —
The dirt with our pitchforks turning;
By the moonbeams' grim and ghastly light,
And our candles dimly burning.

No useless coffin confined his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shirt we bound him;
But he lay like an Editor taking his rest,
With a Hannibal Journal round him.

Few and very short were the prayers we said,
And we felt not a pang of sorrow;
But we mused, as we gazed on the wretch now defunct —
Oh! where will he be tomorrow?

The " Iron Horse " will snort o'er his head,
And the notes of its whistle upbraid him;
But nothing he'll care if they let him sleep on,
In the grave where his nonsense hath laid him.

Slowly, but gladly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
To mark where we buried a tory.