And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of "Annie Laurie."
Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
The following account of the sixth and last bombardment of the defences of Sebastopol was written by an eye-witness within the British lines. The bombardment began on the morning of September 5th, three days before the Malakoff and Redan were assaulted.
There were wreaths of clouds and vapors hanging over the valleys, and on the lines of buildings inside the defences that have kept the armies watching so long in front of Sebastopol. The waters of the bay were as smooth as an inland lake and reflected the hills at their borders, and the vessels that lay at anchor. Out on the Black Sea the French and English fleets were lying quite idle between Kasatch and Constantine.
Looking from Cathcart's Hill, the view included the defences of the Quarantine and the Flagstaff batteries, together with the trenches and approaches made by the French, quite up to where their parallels joined on the English left attack in a ravine at the end of the Dockyard Creek. One standing at this point could take in at a single glance the lines of the Flagstaff batteries, the ruined dwellings in the suburbs, or rather the sites of the dwellings, which had formerly been long streets, but had been destroyed by the fire of the French batteries. The great mass of the ruins was enclosed between the sea-wall, and the Flagstaff batteries, and farther beyond could be seen the city itself, rising apparently in terraces along the hill-sides, displaying fine dwellings, public edifices of red or white sandstone, and magnificent churches, the whole liberally sprinkled with gardens, and with rows of trees growing in the promenades.
