"The Charge of the Light Brigade" was a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a British poet who lived in the 19th century.
Just prior to entering battle during Operation Return against overwhelming Dominion and Cardassian forces, Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir quoted a stanza of this poem. The quote had particular significance because the six hundred Starfleet ships were in danger of being outflanked and surrounded by the larger Dominion fleet. (DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels")
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
The Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 134) described the poem as the "telling of heroism during a hopeless battle in ancient Earth history."
Apocrypha[]
- In Peter David's novel Q-in-Law, Jean-Luc Picard intones an abbreviated version of the last three lines of the above stanza ("Into the jaws of Death rode the six hundred…") when about to enter Lwaxana Troi's quarters for a private dinner.