The Charge of the Light Brigade
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not —
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.*
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!*
* Of the 670 or so who rode into the ‘jaws of death’, 118 men were killed, 127 were wounded and about 60 were taken prisoner. The Russian cavalry line that the ‘six hundred’ briefly breached (in addition to the artillery overlooking the valley from north and south) numbered over five thousand. “C’est magnifique,” was the judgment of French Marshal Pierre Bosquet, “mais ce n’est pas la guerre."
* Tennyson recorded the poem on wax cylinder, and despite the infancy of the technology and the passage of the years you can still hear most of it. Tennyson imparts a kind of hopeless determination to his reading which is particularly moving. Visit Tennyson reading ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ at YouTube.