Ballads by William Makepeace Thackeray
page 26 of 259 (10%)
page 26 of 259 (10%)
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Six foot of ground to lie upon.
He fought a thousand glorious wars, And more than half the world was his, And somewhere now, in yonder stars, Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is. 1841. * This ballad was written at Paris at the time of the Second Funeral of Napoleon. ABD-EL-KADER AT TOULON. OR, THE CAGED HAWK. No more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk, of desert-life for thee; No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free: Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain, Shatter against thy cage the wing thou ne'er may'st spread again. Long, sitting by their watchfires, shall the Kabyles tell the tale Of thy dash from Ben Halifa on the fat Metidja vale; How thou swept'st the desert over, bearing down the wild El Riff, From eastern Beni Salah to western Ouad Shelif; How thy white burnous welit streaming, like the storm-rack o'er the sea, |
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