Echoes of the anvil Author:William Wilson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GENERAL GORDON, THE HERO OF KHARTOUM. PRIZE POETICAL READING. —People's Journal, April 18, 1885. The hero breathed:— " Ere yet a moon's full round t... more »he world has known O'er desert lands, through clouds of moral gloom; Not with a sword unsheathed, But by the will of Heaven—not mine alone— To break the manacles of old Khartoum, To set the captive free; To cleanse her dungeons, stained with blood and shame; To pile her records on a blazing flame,— I go; God witness be !" O'er burning sands, Through wandering tribes of savage-hearted men The Christian soldier marched like knight of yore, Brave as in other lands. No tongue of eloquence, nor vig'rous pen, Nor threats of wrath, but gentleness he wore; And from his earnest gaze The desert denizens shrank back dismayed; And trembling sheikhs for England's hero prayed, And longed for better days. Shouts rent the air; And as glad songs from Khartoum's heart arose Two cities blazed in one, far down the Nile, To welcome Gordon there ! The eventful moon might well its mission close; " God on my side," he cried, " I come the while, Yet with no sharpened sword; But I have truth and justice for the poor, And now to freedom, from their dens obscure, The wronged shall be restored ! " But hark ! afar An antichrist goads on his savage hordes; Be brave, O men! and still with iron wills The gates against him bar, And all his Eemingtons, and spears and swords, We shall defy, till our defiance thrills Through every nation's veins ; And only when gaunt hunger trails her shroud, Ten thousand Outrams, like a thunder-cloud, Shall sweep our burning plains! " Even Kordofan Foresaw the dawning of a better day ; And in the Christian hero all the world Beheld a wondrous man ! The l...« less