Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone.

And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, Dead perfection, no more.

For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley’d and thunder’d.

Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred.

Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.

Someone had blundered.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismay’d?