diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/11kip10.txt | 8532 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/11kip10.zip | bin | 0 -> 133300 bytes |
2 files changed, 8532 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/11kip10.txt b/old/11kip10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d14266 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11kip10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8532 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Verses 1889-1896 + +by Rudyard Kipling + +September, 1995 [Etext #323] + + +Project Gutenberg's Etext of Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling +*****This file should be named 11kip10.txt or 11kip10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 11kip11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 11kip10a.txt. + + +This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. +The equipment: an IBM-compatible 486/50, a Hewlett-Packard +ScanJet IIc flatbed scanner, and Calera Recognition Systems' +M/600 Series Professional OCR software and RISC accelerator board +donated by Calera Recognition Systems. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4 +million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text +files per month: thus upping our productivity from $2 million. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end +of the year 2001. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive +Director: +hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet) hart@uiucvmd (bitnet) + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext95 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +----- +Original provided by the generosity of the Harwell G. Davis Library at +Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama. +Scanned by Judy Boss +proofed by Alan Light, alight@mercury.interpath.net +corrections to Gary Warner, glwarner@mailbox.samford.edu + + + + +Verses 1889-1896 +by Rudyard Kipling [Anglo-Indian writer and poet, 1865-1936] + + + + + + +[Note on text: Italicized stanzas will be indented 5 spaces. +Italicized AND indented stanzas will be indented 10 spaces. +Italicized words or phrases will be marked by tildes (~). +Lines longer than 78 characters have been broken according to metre, +and the continuation is indented two spaces. Also, some obvious errors, +after being confirmed against other sources, have been corrected.] + + +--- + + + +RUDYARD KIPLING + VOLUME XI +VERSES 1889-1896 + + + + + + +The Writings in Prose and Verse of +RUDYARD KIPLING + + +VERSES + +1889-1896 + + + + + + +CONTENTS + Followed by first lines + + + + BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS + 1889-1891 + + + +TO WOLCOTT BALESTIER + Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled -- + + + BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS + + +To T. A. + I have made for you a song, + +DANNY DEEVER + "What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade. + +TOMMY + I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, + +"FUZZY-WUZZY" + We've fought with many men acrost the seas, + +SOLDIER, SOLDIER + "Soldier, soldier come from the wars, + +SCREW-GUNS + Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool, + +CELLS + I've a head like a concertina: I've a tongue like a button-stick: + +GUNGA DIN + You may talk o' gin and beer + +OONTS + Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to penk, wot makes 'im to perspire? + +LOOT + If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back, + +"SNARLEYOW" + This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps, + +THE WIDOW AT WINDSOR + 'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor? + +BELTS + There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay, + +THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER + When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East, + +MANDALAY + By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, + +TROOPIN' + Troopin', troopin', troopin' to the sea, + +THE WIDOW'S PARTY + "Where have you been this while away?" + +FORD O' KABUL RIVER + Kabul town's by Kabul river, + +GENTLEMEN-RANKERS + To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, + +ROUTE MARCHIN' + We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains, + +SHILLIN' A DAY + My name is O'Kelly, I've heard the Revelly, + + + OTHER VERSES + + +THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST + Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, + +THE LAST SUTTEE + Udai Chand lay sick to death, + +THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S MERCY + Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told, + +THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S JEST + When spring-time flushes the desert grass, + +WITH SCINDIA TO DELHI + The wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck, + +THE BALLAD OF BOH DA THONE + This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone, + +THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER CATTLE THIEF + O woe is me for the merry life, + +THE RHYME OF THE THREE CAPTAINS + . . . At the close of a winter day, + +THE BALLAD OF THE "CLAMPHERDOWN" + It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~, + +THE BALLAD OF THE "BOLIVAR" + Seven men from all the world back to Docks again, + +THE SACRIFICE OF ER-HEB + Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai, + +THE EXPLANATION + Love and Death once ceased their strife, + +THE GIFT OF THE SEA + The dead child lay in the shroud, + +EVARRA AND HIS GODS + Read here: This is the story of Evarra -- man --, + +THE CONUNDRUM OF THE WORKSHOPS + When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, + +THE LEGEND OF EVIL + This is the sorrowful story, + +THE ENGLISH FLAG + Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro, + +"CLEARED" + Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt, + +AN IMPERIAL RESCRIPT + Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed, + +TOMLINSON + Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square, + +L'ENVOI TO "LIFE'S HANDICAP" + My new-cut ashlar takes the light, + +L'ENVOI + There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, + + + ___ +] ] +]___]___ + ] ] + ___] ] + +[In India, the swastika is an ancient symbol of good fortune. +Kipling frequently used the swastika in this context.] + + + + + THE SEVEN SEAS + 1891-1896 + + + +DEDICATION + The Cities are full of pride, + + + THE SEVEN SEAS + + +A SONG OF THE ENGLISH + Fair is our lot -- O goodly is our heritage! + +The Coastwise Lights + Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees, + +The Song of the Dead + Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges, + +The Deep-Sea Cables + The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar --, + +The Song of the Sons + One from the ends of the earth -- gifts at an open door --, + +The Song of the Cities + Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen, + +England's Answer + Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban, + +THE FIRST CHANTEY + Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her, + +THE LAST CHANTEY + Thus said The Lord in the Vault above the Cherubim, + +THE MERCHANTMEN + King Solomon drew merchantmen, + +M'ANDREW'S HYMN + Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, + +THE MIRACLES + I sent a message to my dear, + +THE NATIVE-BORN + We've drunk to the Queen -- God bless her! + +THE KING + "Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said, + +THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS + Away by the lands of the Japanee, + +THE DERELICT + I was the staunchest of our fleet, + +THE ANSWER + A Rose, in tatters, on the garden path, + +THE SONG OF THE BANJO + You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile, + +THE LINER SHE'S A LADY + The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds, + +MULHOLLAND'S CONTRACT + The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea, + +ANCHOR SONG + Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again! + FROM "MANY INVENTIONS". + +THE LOST LEGION + There's a Legion that never was 'listed, + +THE SEA-WIFE + There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate, + +HYMN BEFORE ACTION + The earth is full of anger, + +TO THE TRUE ROMANCE + Thy face is far from this our war, + FROM "MANY INVENTIONS". + +THE FLOWERS + Buy my English posies! + +THE LAST RHYME OF TRUE THOMAS + The king has called for priest and cup, + +IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE + In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage, + +THE STORY OF UNG + Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago, + +THE THREE-DECKER + Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail, + +AN AMERICAN + If the Led Striker call it a strike, + +THE "MARY GLOSTER" + I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim, + +SESTINA OF THE TRAMP-ROYAL + Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all, + + + BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS + + +"BACK TO THE ARMY AGAIN" + I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at, + +"BIRDS OF PREY" MARCH + March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies, + +"SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO" + As I was spitting into the Ditch aboard o' the ~Crocodile~, + +SAPPERS + When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear, + +THAT DAY + It got beyond all orders an' it got beyond all 'ope, + +"THE MEN THAT FOUGHT AT MINDEN" + The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time, + +CHOLERA CAMP + We've got the cholerer in camp -- it's worse than forty fights, + +THE LADIES + I've taken my fun where I've found it, + +BILL 'AWKINS + "'As anybody seen Bill 'Awkins?" + +THE MOTHER-LODGE + There was Rundle, Station Master, + +"FOLLOW ME 'OME" + There was no one like 'im, 'Orse or Foot, + +THE SERGEANT'S WEDDIN' + 'E was warned agin 'er, + +THE JACKET + Through the Plagues of Egyp' we was chasin' Arabi, + +THE 'EATHEN + The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone, + +THE SHUT-EYE SENTRY + Sez the Junior Orderly Sergeant, + +"MARY, PITY WOMEN!" + You call yourself a man, + +FOR TO ADMIRE + The Injian Ocean sets an' smiles, + +L'ENVOI + When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, + + + + + + +BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS AND OTHER VERSES + 1889-1891 + + + + + + +TO WOLCOTT BALESTIER + + + + + + +Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled -- +Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled -- +Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world. + +They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays, +They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of the Elder Days, +It is their will to serve or be still as fitteth our Father's praise. + +'Tis theirs to sweep through the ringing deep where Azrael's outposts are, +Or buffet a path through the Pit's red wrath when God goes out to war, +Or hang with the reckless Seraphim on the rein of a red-maned star. + +They take their mirth in the joy of the Earth -- + they dare not grieve for her pain -- +They know of toil and the end of toil, they know God's law is plain, +So they whistle the Devil to make them sport who know that Sin is vain. + +And ofttimes cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade, +And tells them tales of His daily toil, of Edens newly made; +And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid. + +To these who are cleansed of base Desire, Sorrow and Lust and Shame -- +Gods for they knew the hearts of men, men for they stooped to Fame, +Borne on the breath that men call Death, my brother's spirit came. + +He scarce had need to doff his pride or slough the dross of Earth -- +E'en as he trod that day to God so walked he from his birth, +In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth. + +So cup to lip in fellowship they gave him welcome high +And made him place at the banquet board -- the Strong Men ranged thereby, +Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear to die. + +Beyond the loom of the last lone star, through open darkness hurled, +Further than rebel comet dared or hiving star-swarm swirled, +Sits he with those that praise our God for that they served His world. + + + + + + +BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS + + + + + + + To T. A. + + + + I have made for you a song, + And it may be right or wrong, + But only you can tell me if it's true; + I have tried for to explain + Both your pleasure and your pain, + And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you! + + O there'll surely come a day + When they'll give you all your pay, + And treat you as a Christian ought to do; + So, until that day comes round, + Heaven keep you safe and sound, + And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you! + R. K. + + + + +DANNY DEEVER + + + +"What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade. +"To turn you out, to turn you out", the Colour-Sergeant said. +"What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade. +"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said. + For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, + The regiment's in 'ollow square -- they're hangin' him to-day; + They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away, + An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'. + +"What makes the rear-rank breathe so 'ard?" said Files-on-Parade. +"It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold", the Colour-Sergeant said. +"What makes that front-rank man fall down?" said Files-on-Parade. +"A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun", the Colour-Sergeant said. + They are hangin' Danny Deever, they are marchin' of 'im round, + They 'ave 'alted Danny Deever by 'is coffin on the ground; + An' 'e'll swing in 'arf a minute for a sneakin' shootin' hound -- + O they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'! + +"'Is cot was right-'and cot to mine", said Files-on-Parade. +"'E's sleepin' out an' far to-night", the Colour-Sergeant said. +"I've drunk 'is beer a score o' times", said Files-on-Parade. +"'E's drinkin' bitter beer alone", the Colour-Sergeant said. + They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must mark 'im to 'is place, + For 'e shot a comrade sleepin' -- you must look 'im in the face; + Nine 'undred of 'is county an' the regiment's disgrace, + While they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'. + +"What's that so black agin' the sun?" said Files-on-Parade. +"It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life", the Colour-Sergeant said. +"What's that that whimpers over'ead?" said Files-on-Parade. +"It's Danny's soul that's passin' now", the Colour-Sergeant said. + For they're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear the quickstep play, + The regiment's in column, an' they're marchin' us away; + Ho! the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want their beer to-day, + After hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'. + + + + +TOMMY + + + +I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, +The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here." +The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die, +I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I: + O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"; + But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play, + The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, + O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play. + +I went into a theatre as sober as could be, +They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; +They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, +But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls! + For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside"; + But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide, + The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide, + O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide. + +Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep +Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; +An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit +Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit. + Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?" + But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll, + The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, + O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll. + +We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, +But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; +An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, +Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints; + While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind", + But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind, + There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind, + O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind. + +You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: +We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. +Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face +The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace. + For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" + But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot; + An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; + An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees! + + + + +"FUZZY-WUZZY" + +(Soudan Expeditionary Force) + + + +We've fought with many men acrost the seas, + An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not: +The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese; + But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot. +We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im: + 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses, +'E cut our sentries up at Sua~kim~, + An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces. + So 'ere's ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; + You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; + We gives you your certificate, an' if you want it signed + We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined. + +We took our chanst among the Khyber 'ills, + The Boers knocked us silly at a mile, +The Burman give us Irriwaddy chills, + An' a Zulu ~impi~ dished us up in style: +But all we ever got from such as they + Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller; +We 'eld our bloomin' own, the papers say, + But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oller. + Then 'ere's ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missis and the kid; + Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did. + We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't 'ardly fair; + But for all the odds agin' you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square. + +'E 'asn't got no papers of 'is own, + 'E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards, +So we must certify the skill 'e's shown + In usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords: +When 'e's 'oppin' in an' out among the bush + With 'is coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear, +An 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush + Will last an 'ealthy Tommy for a year. + So 'ere's ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' your friends which are no more, + If we 'adn't lost some messmates we would 'elp you to deplore; + But give an' take's the gospel, an' we'll call the bargain fair, + For if you 'ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square! + +'E rushes at the smoke when we let drive, + An', before we know, 'e's 'ackin' at our 'ead; +'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive, + An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead. +'E's a daisy, 'e's a ducky, 'e's a lamb! + 'E's a injia-rubber idiot on the spree, +'E's the on'y thing that doesn't give a damn + For a Regiment o' British Infantree! + So 'ere's ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; + You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; + An' 'ere's ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air -- + You big black boundin' beggar -- for you broke a British square! + + + + +SOLDIER, SOLDIER + + + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +Why don't you march with my true love?" +"We're fresh from off the ship an' 'e's maybe give the slip, +An' you'd best go look for a new love." + New love! True love! + Best go look for a new love, + The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes, + An' you'd best go look for a new love. + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +What did you see o' my true love?" +"I seed 'im serve the Queen in a suit o' rifle-green, +An' you'd best go look for a new love." + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +Did ye see no more o' my true love?" +"I seed 'im runnin' by when the shots begun to fly -- +But you'd best go look for a new love." + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +Did aught take 'arm to my true love?" +"I couldn't see the fight, for the smoke it lay so white -- +An' you'd best go look for a new love." + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +I'll up an' tend to my true love!" +"'E's lying on the dead with a bullet through 'is 'ead, +An' you'd best go look for a new love." + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +I'll down an' die with my true love!" +"The pit we dug'll 'ide 'im an' the twenty men beside 'im -- +An' you'd best go look for a new love." + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +Do you bring no sign from my true love?" +"I bring a lock of 'air that 'e allus used to wear, +An' you'd best go look for a new love." + +"Soldier, soldier come from the wars, +O then I know it's true I've lost my true love!" +"An' I tell you truth again -- when you've lost the feel o' pain +You'd best take me for your true love." + True love! New love! + Best take 'im for a new love, + The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes, + An' you'd best take 'im for your true love. + + + + +SCREW-GUNS + + + +Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool, +I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule, +With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets +It's only the pick of the Army + that handles the dear little pets -- 'Tss! 'Tss! + For you all love the screw-guns -- the screw-guns they all love you! + So when we call round with a few guns, + o' course you will know what to do -- hoo! hoo! + Jest send in your Chief an' surrender -- + it's worse if you fights or you runs: + You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, + but you don't get away from the guns! + +They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't: +We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint: +We've chivied the Naga an' Looshai, we've give the Afreedeeman fits, +For we fancies ourselves at two thousand, + we guns that are built in two bits -- 'Tss! 'Tss! + For you all love the screw-guns . . . + +If a man doesn't work, why, we drills 'im an' teaches 'im 'ow to behave; +If a beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im an' rattles 'im into 'is grave. +You've got to stand up to our business an' spring without snatchin' or fuss. +D'you say that you sweat with the field-guns? + By God, you must lather with us -- 'Tss! 'Tss! + For you all love the screw-guns . . . + +The eagles is screamin' around us, the river's a-moanin' below, +We're clear o' the pine an' the oak-scrub, + we're out on the rocks an' the snow, +An' the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains +The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules -- + the jinglety-jink o' the chains -- 'Tss! 'Tss! + For you all love the screw-guns . . . + +There's a wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', + an' a wheel on the edge o' the Pit, +An' a drop into nothin' beneath you as straight as a beggar can spit: +With the sweat runnin' out o' your shirt-sleeves, + an' the sun off the snow in your face, +An' 'arf o' the men on the drag-ropes + to hold the old gun in 'er place -- 'Tss! 'Tss! + For you all love the screw-guns . . . + +Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool, +I climbs in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule. +The monkey can say what our road was -- + the wild-goat 'e knows where we passed. +Stand easy, you long-eared old darlin's! + Out drag-ropes! With shrapnel! Hold fast -- 'Tss! 'Tss! + For you all love the screw-guns -- the screw-guns they all love you! + So when we take tea with a few guns, + o' course you will know what to do -- hoo! hoo! + Jest send in your Chief an' surrender -- + it's worse if you fights or you runs: + You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, + but you can't get away from the guns! + + + + +CELLS + + + +I've a head like a concertina: I've a tongue like a button-stick: +I've a mouth like an old potato, and I'm more than a little sick, +But I've had my fun o' the Corp'ral's Guard: I've made the cinders fly, +And I'm here in the Clink for a thundering drink + and blacking the Corporal's eye. + With a second-hand overcoat under my head, + And a beautiful view of the yard, + O it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B. + For "drunk and resisting the Guard!" + Mad drunk and resisting the Guard -- + 'Strewth, but I socked it them hard! + So it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B. + For "drunk and resisting the Guard." + +I started o' canteen porter, I finished o' canteen beer, +But a dose o' gin that a mate slipped in, it was that that brought me here. +'Twas that and an extry double Guard that rubbed my nose in the dirt; +But I fell away with the Corp'ral's stock + and the best of the Corp'ral's shirt. + +I left my cap in a public-house, my boots in the public road, +And Lord knows where, and I don't care, my belt and my tunic goed; +They'll stop my pay, they'll cut away the stripes I used to wear, +But I left my mark on the Corp'ral's face, and I think he'll keep it there! + +My wife she cries on the barrack-gate, my kid in the barrack-yard, +It ain't that I mind the Ord'ly room -- it's ~that~ that cuts so hard. +I'll take my oath before them both that I will sure abstain, +But as soon as I'm in with a mate and gin, I know I'll do it again! + With a second-hand overcoat under my head, + And a beautiful view of the yard, + Yes, it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B. + For "drunk and resisting the Guard!" + Mad drunk and resisting the Guard -- + 'Strewth, but I socked it them hard! + So it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B. + For "drunk and resisting the Guard." + + + + +GUNGA DIN + + + +You may talk o' gin and beer +When you're quartered safe out 'ere, +An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; +But when it comes to slaughter +You will do your work on water, +An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it. +Now in Injia's sunny clime, +Where I used to spend my time +A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen, +Of all them blackfaced crew +The finest man I knew +Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din. + He was "Din! Din! Din! + You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din! + Hi! slippery ~hitherao~! + Water, get it! ~Panee lao~! [Bring water swiftly.] + You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din." + +The uniform 'e wore +Was nothin' much before, +An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind, +For a piece o' twisty rag +An' a goatskin water-bag +Was all the field-equipment 'e could find. +When the sweatin' troop-train lay +In a sidin' through the day, +Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl, +We shouted "Harry By!" [Mr. Atkins's equivalent for "O brother."] +Till our throats were bricky-dry, +Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all. + It was "Din! Din! Din! + You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been? + You put some ~juldee~ in it [Be quick.] + Or I'll ~marrow~ you this minute [Hit you.] + If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!" + +'E would dot an' carry one +Till the longest day was done; +An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear. +If we charged or broke or cut, +You could bet your bloomin' nut, +'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear. +With 'is ~mussick~ on 'is back, [Water-skin.] +'E would skip with our attack, +An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire", +An' for all 'is dirty 'ide +'E was white, clear white, inside +When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire! + It was "Din! Din! Din!" + With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green. + When the cartridges ran out, + You could hear the front-files shout, + "Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!" + +I shan't forgit the night +When I dropped be'ind the fight +With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been. +I was chokin' mad with thirst, +An' the man that spied me first +Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din. +'E lifted up my 'ead, +An' he plugged me where I bled, +An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green: +It was crawlin' and it stunk, +But of all the drinks I've drunk, +I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din. + It was "Din! Din! Din! + 'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen; + 'E's chawin' up the ground, + An' 'e's kickin' all around: + For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!" + +'E carried me away +To where a dooli lay, +An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean. +'E put me safe inside, +An' just before 'e died, +"I 'ope you liked your drink", sez Gunga Din. +So I'll meet 'im later on +At the place where 'e is gone -- +Where it's always double drill and no canteen; +'E'll be squattin' on the coals +Givin' drink to poor damned souls, +An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! + Yes, Din! Din! Din! + You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! + Though I've belted you and flayed you, + By the livin' Gawd that made you, + You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! + + + + +OONTS + +(Northern India Transport Train) + + + +Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to penk, wot makes 'im to perspire? +It isn't standin' up to charge nor lyin' down to fire; +But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road +For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load. + O the oont*, O the oont, O the commissariat oont! + With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes; + We packs 'im like an idol, an' you ought to 'ear 'im grunt, + An' when we gets 'im loaded up 'is blessed girth-rope breaks. + +* Camel: -- ~oo~ is pronounced like ~u~ in "bull", but by Mr. Atkins +to rhyme with "front". + +Wot makes the rear-guard swear so 'ard when night is drorin' in, +An' every native follower is shiverin' for 'is skin? +It ain't the chanst o' being rushed by Paythans from the 'ills, +It's the commissariat camel puttin' on 'is bloomin' frills! + O the oont, O the oont, O the hairy scary oont! + A-trippin' over tent-ropes when we've got the night alarm! + We socks 'im with a stretcher-pole an' 'eads 'im off in front, + An' when we've saved 'is bloomin' life 'e chaws our bloomin' arm. + +The 'orse 'e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, +The elephant's a gentleman, the battery-mule's a mule; +But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said an' done, +'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one. + O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont! + The lumpy-'umpy 'ummin'-bird a-singin' where 'e lies, + 'E's blocked the whole division from the rear-guard to the front, + An' when we get him up again -- the beggar goes an' dies! + +'E'll gall an' chafe an' lame an' fight -- 'e smells most awful vile; +'E'll lose 'isself for ever if you let 'im stray a mile; +'E's game to graze the 'ole day long an' 'owl the 'ole night through, +An' when 'e comes to greasy ground 'e splits 'isself in two. + O the oont, O the oont, O the floppin', droppin' oont! + When 'is long legs give from under an' 'is meltin' eye is dim, + The tribes is up be'ind us, and the tribes is out in front -- + It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites an' crows for 'im. + +So when the cruel march is done, an' when the roads is blind, +An' when we sees the camp in front an' 'ears the shots be'ind, +Ho! then we strips 'is saddle off, and all 'is woes is past: +'E thinks on us that used 'im so, and gets revenge at last. + O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin', bloatin' oont! + The late lamented camel in the water-cut 'e lies; + We keeps a mile be'ind 'im an' we keeps a mile in front, + But 'e gets into the drinkin'-casks, and then o' course we dies. + + + + +LOOT + + + +If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back, + If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line, +If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack, + You will understand this little song o' mine. +But the service rules are 'ard, an' from such we are debarred, + For the same with English morals does not suit. + (~Cornet~: Toot! toot!) +W'y, they call a man a robber if 'e stuffs 'is marchin' clobber + With the -- +(~Chorus~) Loo! loo! Lulu! lulu! Loo! loo! Loot! loot! loot! + Ow the loot! + Bloomin' loot! + That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot! + It's the same with dogs an' men, + If you'd make 'em come again + Clap 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! + (~ff~) Whoopee! Tear 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! + +If you've knocked a nigger edgeways when 'e's thrustin' for your life, + You must leave 'im very careful where 'e fell; +An' may thank your stars an' gaiters if you didn't feel 'is knife + That you ain't told off to bury 'im as well. +Then the sweatin' Tommies wonder as they spade the beggars under + Why lootin' should be entered as a crime; +So if my song you'll 'ear, I will learn you plain an' clear + 'Ow to pay yourself for fightin' overtime. +(~Chorus~) With the loot, . . . + +Now remember when you're 'acking round a gilded Burma god + That 'is eyes is very often precious stones; +An' if you treat a nigger to a dose o' cleanin'-rod + 'E's like to show you everything 'e owns. +When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor + Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot + (~Cornet~: Toot! toot!) -- +When the ground begins to sink, shove your baynick down the chink, + An' you're sure to touch the -- +(~Chorus~) Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! + Ow the loot! . . . + +When from 'ouse to 'ouse you're 'unting, you must always work in pairs -- + It 'alves the gain, but safer you will find -- +For a single man gets bottled on them twisty-wisty stairs, + An' a woman comes and clobs 'im from be'ind. +When you've turned 'em inside out, an' it seems beyond a doubt + As if there weren't enough to dust a flute + (~Cornet~: Toot! toot!) -- +Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look, + For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot. +(~Chorus~) Ow the loot! . . . + +You can mostly square a Sergint an' a Quartermaster too, + If you only take the proper way to go; +~I~ could never keep my pickin's, but I've learned you all I knew -- + An' don't you never say I told you so. +An' now I'll bid good-bye, for I'm gettin' rather dry, + An' I see another tunin' up to toot + (~Cornet~: Toot! toot!) -- +So 'ere's good-luck to those that wears the Widow's clo'es, + An' the Devil send 'em all they want o' loot! +(~Chorus~) Yes, the loot, + Bloomin' loot! + In the tunic an' the mess-tin an' the boot! + It's the same with dogs an' men, + If you'd make 'em come again + (~fff~) Whoop 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! + Heeya! Sick 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! + + + + +"SNARLEYOW" + + + +This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps +Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war; +An' what the bloomin' battle was I don't remember now, +But Two's off-lead 'e answered to the name o' ~Snarleyow~. + Down in the Infantry, nobody cares; + Down in the Cavalry, Colonel 'e swears; + But down in the lead with the wheel at the flog + Turns the bold Bombardier to a little whipped dog! + +They was movin' into action, they was needed very sore, +To learn a little schoolin' to a native army corps, +They 'ad nipped against an uphill, they was tuckin' down the brow, +When a tricky, trundlin' roundshot give the knock to ~Snarleyow~. + +They cut 'im loose an' left 'im -- 'e was almost tore in two -- +But he tried to follow after as a well-trained 'orse should do; +'E went an' fouled the limber, an' the Driver's Brother squeals: +"Pull up, pull up for ~Snarleyow~ -- 'is head's between 'is 'eels!" + +The Driver 'umped 'is shoulder, for the wheels was goin' round, +An' there ain't no "Stop, conductor!" when a batt'ry's changin' ground; +Sez 'e: "I broke the beggar in, an' very sad I feels, +But I couldn't pull up, not for ~you~ -- your 'ead between your 'eels!" + +'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell +A little right the batt'ry an' between the sections fell; +An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, +There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels. + +Then sez the Driver's Brother, an' 'is words was very plain, +"For Gawd's own sake get over me, an' put me out o' pain." +They saw 'is wounds was mortial, an' they judged that it was best, +So they took an' drove the limber straight across 'is back an' chest. + +The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt, +But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to "Action Front!" +An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head +'Twas juicier for the niggers when the case begun to spread. + +The moril of this story, it is plainly to be seen: +You 'avn't got no families when servin' of the Queen -- +You 'avn't got no brothers, fathers, sisters, wives, or sons -- +If you want to win your battles take an' work your bloomin' guns! + Down in the Infantry, nobody cares; + Down in the Cavalry, Colonel 'e swears; + But down in the lead with the wheel at the flog + Turns the bold Bombardier to a little whipped dog! + + + + +THE WIDOW AT WINDSOR + + + +'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor + With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? +She 'as ships on the foam -- she 'as millions at 'ome, + An' she pays us poor beggars in red. + (Ow, poor beggars in red!) +There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses, + There's 'er mark on the medical stores -- +An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind + That takes us to various wars. + (Poor beggars! -- barbarious wars!) + Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor, + An' 'ere's to the stores an' the guns, + The men an' the 'orses what makes up the forces + O' Missis Victorier's sons. + (Poor beggars! Victorier's sons!) + +Walk wide o' the Widow at Windsor, + For 'alf o' Creation she owns: +We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame, + An' we've salted it down with our bones. + (Poor beggars! -- it's blue with our bones!) +Hands off o' the sons o' the Widow, + Hands off o' the goods in 'er shop, +For the Kings must come down an' the Emperors frown + When the Widow at Windsor says "Stop"! + (Poor beggars! -- we're sent to say "Stop"!) + Then 'ere's to the Lodge o' the Widow, + From the Pole to the Tropics it runs -- + To the Lodge that we tile with the rank an' the file, + An' open in form with the guns. + (Poor beggars! -- it's always they guns!) + +We 'ave 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor, + It's safest to let 'er alone: +For 'er sentries we stand by the sea an' the land + Wherever the bugles are blown. + (Poor beggars! -- an' don't we get blown!) +Take 'old o' the Wings o' the Mornin', + An' flop round the earth till you're dead; +But you won't get away from the tune that they play + To the bloomin' old rag over'ead. + (Poor beggars! -- it's 'ot over'ead!) + Then 'ere's to the sons o' the Widow, + Wherever, 'owever they roam. + 'Ere's all they desire, an' if they require + A speedy return to their 'ome. + (Poor beggars! -- they'll never see 'ome!) + + + + +BELTS + + + +There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay, +Between an Irish regiment an' English cavalree; +It started at Revelly an' it lasted on till dark: +The first man dropped at Harrison's, the last forninst the Park. + For it was: -- "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!" + An' it was "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for you!" + O buckle an' tongue + Was the song that we sung + From Harrison's down to the Park! + +There was a row in Silver Street -- the regiments was out, +They called us "Delhi Rebels", an' we answered "Threes about!" +That drew them like a hornet's nest -- we met them good an' large, +The English at the double an' the Irish at the charge. + Then it was: -- "Belts . . . + +There was a row in Silver Street -- an' I was in it too; +We passed the time o' day, an' then the belts went whirraru! +I misremember what occurred, but subsequint the storm +A ~Freeman's Journal Supplemint~ was all my uniform. + O it was: -- "Belts . . . + +There was a row in Silver Street -- they sent the Polis there, +The English were too drunk to know, the Irish didn't care; +But when they grew impertinint we simultaneous rose, +Till half o' them was Liffey mud an' half was tatthered clo'es. + For it was: -- "Belts . . . + +There was a row in Silver Street -- it might ha' raged till now, +But some one drew his side-arm clear, an' nobody knew how; +'Twas Hogan took the point an' dropped; we saw the red blood run: +An' so we all was murderers that started out in fun. + While it was: -- "Belts . . . + +There was a row in Silver Street -- but that put down the shine, +Wid each man whisperin' to his next: "'Twas never work o' mine!" +We went away like beaten dogs, an' down the street we bore him, +The poor dumb corpse that couldn't tell the bhoys were sorry for him. + When it was: -- "Belts . . . + +There was a row in Silver Street -- it isn't over yet, +For half of us are under guard wid punishments to get; +'Tis all a merricle to me as in the Clink I lie: +There was a row in Silver Street -- begod, I wonder why! + But it was: -- "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!" + An' it was "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for you!" + O buckle an' tongue + Was the song that we sung + From Harrison's down to the Park! + + + + +THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER + + + +When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East +'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast, +An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased + Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier. + Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, + Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, + Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, + So-oldier ~OF~ the Queen! + +Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day, +You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay, +An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may: + A soldier what's fit for a soldier. + Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . . + +First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts, +For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts -- +Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts -- + An' it's bad for the young British soldier. + Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . . + +When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt -- +Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout, +For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out, + An' it crumples the young British soldier. + Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . . + +But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead: +You ~must~ wear your 'elmet for all that is said: +If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead, + An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier. + Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . . + +If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind, +Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind; +Be handy and civil, and then you will find + That it's beer for the young British soldier. + Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . . + +Now, if you must marry, take care she is old -- +A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told, +For beauty won't help if your rations is cold, + Nor love ain't enough for a soldier. + 'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . . + +If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath +To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! -- +Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both, + An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier. + Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . . + +When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, +Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, +Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck + And march to your front like a soldier. + Front, front, front like a soldier . . . + +When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch, +Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch; +She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich, + An' she'll fight for the young British soldier. + Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . . + +When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine, +The guns o' the enemy wheel into line, +Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine, + For noise never startles the soldier. + Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . . + +If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, +Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: +So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, + And wait for supports like a soldier. + Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . . + +When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, +And the women come out to cut up what remains, +Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains + An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. + Go, go, go like a soldier, + Go, go, go like a soldier, + Go, go, go like a soldier, + So-oldier ~of~ the Queen! + + + + +MANDALAY + + + +By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, +There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; +For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: +"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!" + Come you back to Mandalay, + Where the old Flotilla lay: + Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay? + On the road to Mandalay, + Where the flyin'-fishes play, + An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! + +'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green, +An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen, +An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot, +An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot: + Bloomin' idol made o'mud -- + Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd -- + Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud! + On the road to Mandalay . . . + +When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow, +She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "~Kulla-lo-lo!~" +With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek +We useter watch the steamers an' the ~hathis~ pilin' teak. + Elephints a-pilin' teak + In the sludgy, squdgy creek, + Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak! + On the road to Mandalay . . . + +But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away, +An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay; +An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells: +"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else." + No! you won't 'eed nothin' else + But them spicy garlic smells, + An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells; + On the road to Mandalay . . . + +I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones, +An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones; +Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand, +An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand? + Beefy face an' grubby 'and -- + Law! wot do they understand? + I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land! + On the road to Mandalay . . . + +Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, +Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst; +For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be -- +By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea; + On the road to Mandalay, + Where the old Flotilla lay, + With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay! + On the road to Mandalay, + Where the flyin'-fishes play, + An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! + + + + +TROOPIN' + +(Our Army in the East) + + + +Troopin', troopin', troopin' to the sea: +'Ere's September come again -- the six-year men are free. +O leave the dead be'ind us, for they cannot come away +To where the ship's a-coalin' up that takes us 'ome to-day. + We're goin' 'ome, we're goin' 'ome, + Our ship is at the shore, + An' you must pack your 'aversack, + For we won't come back no more. + Ho, don't you grieve for me, + My lovely Mary-Ann, + For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit + As a time-expired man. + +The ~Malabar~'s in 'arbour with the ~Jumner~ at 'er tail, +An' the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders for to sail. +Ho! the weary waitin' when on Khyber 'ills we lay, +But the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders 'ome to-day. + +They'll turn us out at Portsmouth wharf in cold an' wet an' rain, +All wearin' Injian cotton kit, but we will not complain; +They'll kill us of pneumonia -- for that's their little way -- +But damn the chills and fever, men, we're goin' 'ome to-day! + +Troopin', troopin', winter's round again! +See the new draf's pourin' in for the old campaign; +Ho, you poor recruities, but you've got to earn your pay -- +What's the last from Lunnon, lads? We're goin' there to-day. + +Troopin', troopin', give another cheer -- +'Ere's to English women an' a quart of English beer. +The Colonel an' the regiment an' all who've got to stay, +Gawd's mercy strike 'em gentle -- Whoop! we're goin' 'ome to-day. + We're goin' 'ome, we're goin' 'ome, + Our ship is at the shore, + An' you must pack your 'aversack, + For we won't come back no more. + Ho, don't you grieve for me, + My lovely Mary-Ann, + For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit + As a time-expired man. + + + + +THE WIDOW'S PARTY + + + +"Where have you been this while away, + Johnnie, Johnnie?" +'Long with the rest on a picnic lay, + Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! +They called us out of the barrack-yard +To Gawd knows where from Gosport Hard, +And you can't refuse when you get the card, + And the Widow gives the party. + (~Bugle~: Ta--rara--ra-ra-rara!) + +"What did you get to eat and drink, + Johnnie, Johnnie?" +Standing water as thick as ink, + Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! +A bit o' beef that were three year stored, +A bit o' mutton as tough as a board, +And a fowl we killed with a sergeant's sword, + When the Widow give the party. + +"What did you do for knives and forks, + Johnnie, Johnnie?" +We carries 'em with us wherever we walks, + Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! +And some was sliced and some was halved, +And some was crimped and some was carved, +And some was gutted and some was starved, + When the Widow give the party. + +"What ha' you done with half your mess, + Johnnie, Johnnie?" +They couldn't do more and they wouldn't do less, + Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! +They ate their whack and they drank their fill, +And I think the rations has made them ill, +For half my comp'ny's lying still + Where the Widow give the party. + +"How did you get away -- away, + Johnnie, Johnnie?" +On the broad o' my back at the end o' the day, + Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! +I comed away like a bleedin' toff, +For I got four niggers to carry me off, +As I lay in the bight of a canvas trough, + When the Widow give the party. + +"What was the end of all the show, + Johnnie, Johnnie?" +Ask my Colonel, for ~I~ don't know, + Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! +We broke a King and we built a road -- +A court-house stands where the reg'ment goed. +And the river's clean where the raw blood flowed + When the Widow give the party. + (~Bugle~: Ta--rara--ra-ra-rara!) + + + + +FORD O' KABUL RIVER + + + +Kabul town's by Kabul river -- + Blow the bugle, draw the sword -- +There I lef' my mate for ever, + Wet an' drippin' by the ford. + Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, + Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! + There's the river up and brimmin', an' there's 'arf a squadron swimmin' + 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark. + +Kabul town's a blasted place -- + Blow the bugle, draw the sword -- +'Strewth I sha'n't forget 'is face + Wet an' drippin' by the ford! + Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, + Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! + Keep the crossing-stakes beside you, an' they will surely guide you + 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark. + +Kabul town is sun and dust -- + Blow the bugle, draw the sword -- +I'd ha' sooner drownded fust + 'Stead of 'im beside the ford. + Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, + Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! + You can 'ear the 'orses threshin', you can 'ear the men a-splashin', + 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark. + +Kabul town was ours to take -- + Blow the bugle, draw the sword -- +I'd ha' left it for 'is sake -- + 'Im that left me by the ford. + Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, + Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! + It's none so bloomin' dry there; ain't you never comin' nigh there, + 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark? + +Kabul town'll go to hell -- + Blow the bugle, draw the sword -- +'Fore I see him 'live an' well -- + 'Im the best beside the ford. + Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, + Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! + Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder, for their boots'll pull 'em under, + By the ford o' Kabul river in the dark. + +Turn your 'orse from Kabul town -- + Blow the bugle, draw the sword -- +'Im an' 'arf my troop is down, + Down an' drownded by the ford. + Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, + Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! + There's the river low an' fallin', but it ain't no use o' callin' + 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark. + + + + +GENTLEMEN-RANKERS + + + +To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, + To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, +Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, + And a trooper of the Empress, if you please. +Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses, + And faith he went the pace and went it blind, +And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin, + But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind. + We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, + Baa! Baa! Baa! + We're little black sheep who've gone astray, + Baa--aa--aa! + Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, + Damned from here to Eternity, + God ha' mercy on such as we, + Baa! Yah! Bah! + +Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops, + And it's sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell, +To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops + And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well. +Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be "Rider" to your troop, + And branded with a blasted worsted spur, +When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly + Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you "Sir". + +If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep, + And all we know most distant and most dear, +Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep, + Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer? +When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters + And the horror of our fall is written plain, +Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling, + Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain? + +We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth, + We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung, +And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. + God help us, for we knew the worst too young! +Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence, + Our pride it is to know no spur of pride, +And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us + And we die, and none can tell Them where we died. + We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, + Baa! Baa! Baa! + We're little black sheep who've gone astray, + Baa--aa--aa! + Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, + Damned from here to Eternity, + God ha' mercy on such as we, + Baa! Yah! Bah! + + + + +ROUTE MARCHIN' + + + +We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains, +A little front o' Christmas-time an' just be'ind the Rains; +Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed, +There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road; + With its best foot first + And the road a-sliding past, + An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last; + While the Big Drum says, + With 'is "~rowdy-dowdy-dow!~" -- + "~Kiko kissywarsti~ don't you ~hamsher argy jow?~"* + +* Why don't you get on? + +Oh, there's them Injian temples to admire when you see, +There's the peacock round the corner an' the monkey up the tree, +An' there's that rummy silver grass a-wavin' in the wind, +An' the old Grand Trunk a-trailin' like a rifle-sling be'ind. + While it's best foot first, . . . + +At half-past five's Revelly, an' our tents they down must come, +Like a lot of button mushrooms when you pick 'em up at 'ome. +But it's over in a minute, an' at six the column starts, +While the women and the kiddies sit an' shiver in the carts. + An' it's best foot first, . . . + +Oh, then it's open order, an' we lights our pipes an' sings, +An' we talks about our rations an' a lot of other things, +An' we thinks o' friends in England, an' we wonders what they're at, +An' 'ow they would admire for to hear us sling the ~bat~.* + An' it's best foot first, . . . + +* Language. Thomas's first and firmest conviction is that +he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. +As a matter of fact, he depends largely on the sign-language. + +It's none so bad o' Sunday, when you're lyin' at your ease, +To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees, +For although there ain't no women, yet there ain't no barrick-yards, +So the orficers goes shootin' an' the men they plays at cards. + Till it's best foot first, . . . + +So 'ark an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore, +There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore; +An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell, +You drop some tallow in your socks an' that will make 'em well. + For it's best foot first, . . . + +We're marchin' on relief over Injia's coral strand, +Eight 'undred fightin' Englishmen, the Colonel, and the Band; +Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed, +There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road; + With its best foot first + And the road a-sliding past, + An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last; + While the Big Drum says, + With 'is "~rowdy-dowdy-dow!~" -- + "~Kiko kissywarsti~ don't you ~hamsher argy jow?~" + + + + +SHILLIN' A DAY + + + +My name is O'Kelly, I've heard the Revelly +From Birr to Bareilly, from Leeds to Lahore, +Hong-Kong and Peshawur, +Lucknow and Etawah, +And fifty-five more all endin' in "pore". +Black Death and his quickness, the depth and the thickness, +Of sorrow and sickness I've known on my way, +But I'm old and I'm nervis, +I'm cast from the Service, +And all I deserve is a shillin' a day. + (~Chorus~) Shillin' a day, + Bloomin' good pay -- + Lucky to touch it, a shillin' a day! + +Oh, it drives me half crazy to think of the days I +Went slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side, +When we rode Hell-for-leather +Both squadrons together, +That didn't care whether we lived or we died. +But it's no use despairin', my wife must go charin' +An' me commissairin' the pay-bills to better, +So if me you be'old +In the wet and the cold, +By the Grand Metropold, won't you give me a letter? + (~Full chorus~) Give 'im a letter -- + 'Can't do no better, + Late Troop-Sergeant-Major an' -- runs with a letter! + Think what 'e's been, + Think what 'e's seen, + Think of his pension an' ---- + + GAWD SAVE THE QUEEN. + + + + + + +OTHER VERSES + + + + + + +THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST + + + + Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, + Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; + But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, + When two strong men stand face to face, + tho' they come from the ends of the earth! + +Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side, +And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride: +He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day, +And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away. +Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides: +"Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?" +Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar: +"If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are. +At dusk he harries the Abazai -- at dawn he is into Bonair, +But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare, +So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly, +By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tongue of Jagai. +But if he be past the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then, +For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men. +There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between, +And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen." +The Colonel's son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he, +With the mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell + and the head of the gallows-tree. +The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat -- +Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat. +He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly, +Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai, +Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back, +And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack. +He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide. +"Ye shoot like a soldier," Kamal said. "Show now if ye can ride." +It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dustdevils go, +The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe. +The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above, +But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars, as a maiden plays with a glove. +There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between, +And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen. +They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn, +The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn. +The dun he fell at a water-course -- in a woful heap fell he, +And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free. +He has knocked the pistol out of his hand -- small room was there to strive, +"'Twas only by favour of mine," quoth he, "ye rode so long alive: +There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree, +But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee. +If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low, +The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row: +If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high, +The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly." +Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "Do good to bird and beast, +But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast. +If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away, +Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay. +They will feed their horse on the standing crop, + their men on the garnered grain, +The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain. +But if thou thinkest the price be fair, -- thy brethren wait to sup, +The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn, -- howl, dog, and call them up! +And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack, +Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back!" +Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet. +"No talk shall be of dogs," said he, "when wolf and gray wolf meet. +May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath; +What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?" +Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "I hold by the blood of my clan: +Take up the mare for my father's gift -- by God, she has carried a man!" +The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast; +"We be two strong men," said Kamal then, "but she loveth the younger best. +So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded rein, +My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain." +The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end, +"Ye have taken the one from a foe," said he; + "will ye take the mate from a friend?" +"A gift for a gift," said Kamal straight; "a limb for the risk of a limb. +Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!" +With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain-crest -- +He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance in rest. +"Now here is thy master," Kamal said, "who leads a troop of the Guides, +And thou must ride at his left side as shield on shoulder rides. +Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed, +Thy life is his -- thy fate it is to guard him with thy head. +So, thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine, +And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line, +And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power -- +Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur." + +They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault, +They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt: +They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, +On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God. +The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun, +And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one. +And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear -- +There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer. +"Ha' done! ha' done!" said the Colonel's son. + "Put up the steel at your sides! +Last night ye had struck at a Border thief -- + to-night 'tis a man of the Guides!" + + Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, + Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; + But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, + When two strong men stand face to face, + tho' they come from the ends of the earth! + + + + +THE LAST SUTTEE + + Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. + His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, + would have broken out of the palace had not the gates been barred. + But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, + passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, + her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, + to kill her. This he did, not knowing who she was. + + + +Udai Chand lay sick to death + In his hold by Gungra hill. +All night we heard the death-gongs ring +For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King, +All night beat up from the women's wing + A cry that we could not still. + +All night the barons came and went, + The lords of the outer guard: +All night the cressets glimmered pale +On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail, +Mewar headstall and Marwar mail, + That clinked in the palace yard. + +In the Golden room on the palace roof + All night he fought for air: +And there was sobbing behind the screen, +Rustle and whisper of women unseen, +And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen + On the death she might not share. + +He passed at dawn -- the death-fire leaped + From ridge to river-head, +From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars: +And wail upon wail went up to the stars +Behind the grim zenana-bars, + When they knew that the King was dead. + +The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth + And robe him for the pyre. +The Boondi Queen beneath us cried: +"See, now, that we die as our mothers died +In the bridal-bed by our master's side! + Out, women! -- to the fire!" + +We drove the great gates home apace: + White hands were on the sill: +But ere the rush of the unseen feet +Had reached the turn to the open street, +The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat -- + We held the dovecot still. + +A face looked down in the gathering day, + And laughing spoke from the wall: +"Oh]/e, they mourn here: let me by -- +Azizun, the Lucknow nautch-girl, I! +When the house is rotten, the rats must fly, + And I seek another thrall. + +"For I ruled the King as ne'er did Queen, -- + To-night the Queens rule me! +Guard them safely, but let me go, +Or ever they pay the debt they owe +In scourge and torture!" She leaped below, + And the grim guard watched her flee. + +They knew that the King had spent his soul + On a North-bred dancing-girl: +That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god, +And kissed the ground where her feet had trod, +And doomed to death at her drunken nod, + And swore by her lightest curl. + +We bore the King to his fathers' place, + Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand: +Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preen +On fretted pillar and jewelled screen, +And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen + On the drift of the desert sand. + +The herald read his titles forth, + We set the logs aglow: +"Friend of the English, free from fear, +Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer, +Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer, + King of the Jungle, -- go!" + +All night the red flame stabbed the sky + With wavering wind-tossed spears: +And out of a shattered temple crept +A woman who veiled her head and wept, +And called on the King -- but the great King slept, + And turned not for her tears. + +Small thought had he to mark the strife -- + Cold fear with hot desire -- +When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame, +And thrice she beat her breast for shame, +And thrice like a wounded dove she came + And moaned about the fire. + +One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze, + The silent streets between, +Who had stood by the King in sport and fray, +To blade in ambush or boar at bay, +And he was a baron old and gray, + And kin to the Boondi Queen. + +He said: "O shameless, put aside + The veil upon thy brow! +Who held the King and all his land +To the wanton will of a harlot's hand! +Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand? + Stoop down, and call him now!" + +Then she: "By the faith of my tarnished soul, + All things I did not well, +I had hoped to clear ere the fire died, +And lay me down by my master's side +To rule in Heaven his only bride, + While the others howl in Hell. + +"But I have felt the fire's breath, + And hard it is to die! +Yet if I may pray a Rajpoot lord +To sully the steel of a Thakur's sword +With base-born blood of a trade abhorred," -- + And the Thakur answered, "Ay." + +He drew and struck: the straight blade drank + The life beneath the breast. +"I had looked for the Queen to face the flame, +But the harlot dies for the Rajpoot dame -- +Sister of mine, pass, free from shame, + Pass with thy King to rest!" + +The black log crashed above the white: + The little flames and lean, +Red as slaughter and blue as steel, +That whistled and fluttered from head to heel, +Leaped up anew, for they found their meal + On the heart of -- the Boondi Queen! + + + + +THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S MERCY + + + + Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told. + His mercy fills the Khyber hills -- his grace is manifold; + He has taken toll of the North and the South -- + his glory reacheth far, + And they tell the tale of his charity from Balkh to Kandahar. + +Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet, +The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street, +And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife, +Tho' he who held the longer purse might hold the longer life. + +There was a hound of Hindustan had struck a Euzufzai, +Wherefore they spat upon his face and led him out to die. +It chanced the King went forth that hour when throat was bared to knife; +The Kaffir grovelled under-hoof and clamoured for his life. + +Then said the King: "Have hope, O friend! Yea, Death disgraced is hard; +Much honour shall be thine"; and called the Captain of the Guard, +Yar Khan, a bastard of the Blood, so city-babble saith, +And he was honoured of the King -- the which is salt to Death; +And he was son of Daoud Shah, the Reiver of the Plains, +And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins; +And 'twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind, +The King would make him butcher to a yelping cur of Hind. + +"Strike!" said the King. "King's blood art thou -- + his death shall be his pride!" +Then louder, that the crowd might catch: "Fear not -- his arms are tied!" +Yar Khan drew clear the Khyber knife, and struck, and sheathed again. +"O man, thy will is done," quoth he; "a King this dog hath slain." + + Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, to the North and the South is sold. + The North and the South shall open their mouth + to a Ghilzai flag unrolled, + When the big guns speak to the Khyber peak, and his dog-Heratis fly: + Ye have heard the song -- How long? How long? + Wolves of the Abazai! + +That night before the watch was set, when all the streets were clear, +The Governor of Kabul spoke: "My King, hast thou no fear? +Thou knowest -- thou hast heard," -- his speech died at his master's face. +And grimly said the Afghan King: "I rule the Afghan race. +My path is mine -- see thou to thine -- to-night upon thy bed +Think who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head." + +That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne, +Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone. +Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night, +Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white. +The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse's hoofs, +The harlots of the town had hailed him "butcher!" from their roofs. +But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell, +The King behind his shoulder spake: "Dead man, thou dost not well! +'Tis ill to jest with Kings by day and seek a boon by night; +And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write. +But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain, +Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain. +For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee. +My butcher of the shambles, rest -- no knife hast thou for me!" + + Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, + holds hard by the South and the North; + But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows, + when the swollen banks break forth, + When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall, + and his Usbeg lances fail: + Ye have heard the song -- How long? How long? + Wolves of the Zuka Kheyl! + +They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky, +According to the written word, "See that he do not die." + +They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain, +And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again. + +One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered thing, +And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King. + +It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan, +The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan. +From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath, +"Creature of God, deliver me from agony of Death." + +They sought the King among his girls, and risked their lives thereby: +"Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!" + +"Bid him endure until the day," a lagging answer came; +"The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name." + +Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more: +"Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!" + +They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain, +And when he heard the matchlocks clink, he blessed the King again. + +Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing, +So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King. + + Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told, + He has opened his mouth to the North and the South, + they have stuffed his mouth with gold. + Ye know the truth of his tender ruth -- and sweet his favours are: + Ye have heard the song -- How long? How long? + from Balkh to Kandahar. + + + + +THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S JEST + + + +When spring-time flushes the desert grass, +Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. +Lean are the camels but fat the frails, +Light are the purses but heavy the bales, +As the snowbound trade of the North comes down +To the market-square of Peshawur town. + +In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill, +A kafila camped at the foot of the hill. +Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose, +And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose; +And the picketed ponies, shag and wild, +Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled; +And the bubbling camels beside the load +Sprawled for a furlong adown the road; +And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale, +Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale; +And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food; +And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood; +And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk +A savour of camels and carpets and musk, +A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke, +To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke. + +The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high, +The knives were whetted and -- then came I +To Mahbub Ali the muleteer, +Patching his bridles and counting his gear, +Crammed with the gossip of half a year. +But Mahbub Ali the kindly said, +"Better is speech when the belly is fed." +So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep +In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep, +And he who never hath tasted the food, +By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good. + +We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease, +We lay on the mats and were filled with peace, +And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south, +With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth. +Four things greater than all things are, -- +Women and Horses and Power and War. +We spake of them all, but the last the most, +For I sought a word of a Russian post, +Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword +And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford. +Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes +In the fashion of one who is weaving lies. +Quoth he: "Of the Russians who can say? +When the night is gathering all is gray. +But we look that the gloom of the night shall die +In the morning flush of a blood-red sky. +Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise +To warn a King of his enemies? +We know what Heaven or Hell may bring, +But no man knoweth the mind of the King. +That unsought counsel is cursed of God +Attesteth the story of Wali Dad. + +"His sire was leaky of tongue and pen, +His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen; +And the colt bred close to the vice of each, +For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech. +Therewith madness -- so that he sought +The favour of kings at the Kabul court; +And travelled, in hope of honour, far +To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are. +There have I journeyed too -- but I +Saw naught, said naught, and -- did not die! +He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breath +Of `this one knoweth' and `that one saith', -- +Legends that ran from mouth to mouth +Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South. +These have I also heard -- they pass +With each new spring and the winter grass. + +"Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God, +Back to the city ran Wali Dad, +Even to Kabul -- in full durbar +The King held talk with his Chief in War. +Into the press of the crowd he broke, +And what he had heard of the coming spoke. + +"Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled, +As a mother might on a babbling child; +But those who would laugh restrained their breath, +When the face of the King showed dark as death. +Evil it is in full durbar +To cry to a ruler of gathering war! +Slowly he led to a peach-tree small, +That grew by a cleft of the city wall. +And he said to the boy: `They shall praise thy zeal +So long as the red spurt follows the steel. +And the Russ is upon us even now? +Great is thy prudence -- await them, thou. +Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong, +Surely thy vigil is not for long. +The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran? +Surely an hour shall bring their van. +Wait and watch. When the host is near, +Shout aloud that my men may hear.' + +"Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise +To warn a King of his enemies? +A guard was set that he might not flee -- +A score of bayonets ringed the tree. +The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow, +When he shook at his death as he looked below. +By the power of God, who alone is great, +Till the seventh day he fought with his fate. +Then madness took him, and men declare +He mowed in the branches as ape and bear, +And last as a sloth, ere his body failed, +And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed, +And sleep the cord of his hands untied, +And he fell, and was caught on the points and died. + +"Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise +To warn a King of his enemies? +We know what Heaven or Hell may bring, +But no man knoweth the mind of the King. +Of the gray-coat coming who can say? +When the night is gathering all is gray. +Two things greater than all things are, +The first is Love, and the second War. +And since we know not how War may prove, +Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!" + + + + +WITH SCINDIA TO DELHI + + + + More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi, + an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost + with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps, + on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety. + A Maratta trooper tells the story: -- + + +The wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck, + Our hands and scarfs were saffron-dyed for signal of despair, +When we went forth to Paniput to battle with the ~Mlech~, -- + Ere we came back from Paniput and left a kingdom there. + +Thrice thirty thousand men were we to force the Jumna fords -- + The hawk-winged horse of Damajee, mailed squadrons of the Bhao, +Stark levies of the southern hills, the Deccan's sharpest swords, + And he the harlot's traitor son the goatherd Mulhar Rao! + +Thrice thirty thousand men were we before the mists had cleared, + The low white mists of morning heard the war-conch scream and bray; +We called upon Bhowani and we gripped them by the beard, + We rolled upon them like a flood and washed their ranks away. + +The children of the hills of Khost before our lances ran, + We drove the black Rohillas back as cattle to the pen; +'Twas then we needed Mulhar Rao to end what we began, + A thousand men had saved the charge; he fled the field with ten! + +There was no room to clear a sword -- no power to strike a blow, + For foot to foot, ay, breast to breast, the battle held us fast -- +Save where the naked hill-men ran, and stabbing from below + Brought down the horse and rider and we trampled them and passed. + +To left the roar of musketry rang like a falling flood -- + To right the sunshine rippled red from redder lance and blade -- +Above the dark ~Upsaras~* flew, beneath us plashed the blood, + And, bellying black against the dust, the Bhagwa Jhanda swayed. + +* The Choosers of the Slain. + +I saw it fall in smoke and fire, the banner of the Bhao; + I heard a voice across the press of one who called in vain: -- +"Ho! Anand Rao Nimbalkhur, ride! Get aid of Mulhar Rao! + Go shame his squadrons into fight -- the Bhao -- the Bhao is slain!" + +Thereat, as when a sand-bar breaks in clotted spume and spray -- + When rain of later autumn sweeps the Jumna water-head, +Before their charge from flank to flank our riven ranks gave way; + But of the waters of that flood the Jumna fords ran red. + +I held by Scindia, my lord, as close as man might hold; + A Soobah of the Deccan asks no aid to guard his life; +But Holkar's Horse were flying, and our chiefest chiefs were cold, + And like a flame among us leapt the long lean Northern knife. + +I held by Scindia -- my lance from butt to tuft was dyed, + The froth of battle bossed the shield and roped the bridle-chain -- +What time beneath our horses' feet a maiden rose and cried, + And clung to Scindia, and I turned a sword-cut from the twain. + +(He set a spell upon the maid in woodlands long ago, + A hunter by the Tapti banks she gave him water there: +He turned her heart to water, and she followed to her woe. + What need had he of Lalun who had twenty maids as fair?) + +Now in that hour strength left my lord; he wrenched his mare aside; + He bound the girl behind him and we slashed and struggled free. +Across the reeling wreck of strife we rode as shadows ride + From Paniput to Delhi town, but not alone were we. + +'Twas Lutuf-Ullah Populzai laid horse upon our track, + A swine-fed reiver of the North that lusted for the maid; +I might have barred his path awhile, but Scindia called me back, + And I -- O woe for Scindia! -- I listened and obeyed. + +League after league the formless scrub took shape and glided by -- + League after league the white road swirled behind the white mare's feet -- +League after league, when leagues were done, we heard the Populzai, + Where sure as Time and swift as Death the tireless footfall beat. + +Noon's eye beheld that shame of flight, the shadows fell, we fled + Where steadfast as the wheeling kite he followed in our train; +The black wolf warred where we had warred, the jackal mocked our dead, + And terror born of twilight-tide made mad the labouring brain. + +I gasped: -- "A kingdom waits my lord; her love is but her own. + A day shall mar, a day shall cure for her, but what for thee? +Cut loose the girl: he follows fast. Cut loose and ride alone!" + Then Scindia 'twixt his blistered lips: -- "My Queens' Queen shall she be! + +"Of all who ate my bread last night 'twas she alone that came + To seek her love between the spears and find her crown therein! +One shame is mine to-day, what need the weight of double shame? + If once we reach the Delhi gate, though all be lost, I win!" + +We rode -- the white mare failed -- her trot a staggering stumble grew, -- + The cooking-smoke of even rose and weltered and hung low; +And still we heard the Populzai and still we strained anew, + And Delhi town was very near, but nearer was the foe. + +Yea, Delhi town was very near when Lalun whispered: -- "Slay! + Lord of my life, the mare sinks fast -- stab deep and let me die!" +But Scindia would not, and the maid tore free and flung away, + And turning as she fell we heard the clattering Populzai. + +Then Scindia checked the gasping mare that rocked and groaned for breath, + And wheeled to charge and plunged the knife a hand's-breadth in her side -- +The hunter and the hunted know how that last pause is death -- + The blood had chilled about her heart, she reared and fell and died. + +Our Gods were kind. Before he heard the maiden's piteous scream + A log upon the Delhi road, beneath the mare he lay -- +Lost mistress and lost battle passed before him like a dream; + The darkness closed about his eyes -- I bore my King away. + + + + +THE BALLAD OF BOH DA THONE + + + + This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone, + Erst a Pretender to Theebaw's throne, + Who harried the district of Alalone: + How he met with his fate and the V.P.P.* + At the hand of Harendra Mukerji, + Senior Gomashta, G.B.T. + +* Value Payable Parcels Post: in which the Government collects the money +for the sender. + +Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold: +His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold, + +And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore +Was stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore. + +He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak +From the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak: + +He crucified noble, he sacrificed mean, +He filled old ladies with kerosene: + +While over the water the papers cried, +"The patriot fights for his countryside!" + +But little they cared for the Native Press, +The worn white soldiers in Khaki dress, + +Who tramped through the jungle and camped in the byre, +Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire, + +Who gave up their lives, at the Queen's Command, +For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land. + +Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da Thone +Was Captain O'Neil of the "Black Tyrone", + +And his was a Company, seventy strong, +Who hustled that dissolute Chief along. + +There were lads from Galway and Louth and Meath +Who went to their death with a joke in their teeth, + +And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zeal +The mud on the boot-heels of "Crook" O'Neil. + +But ever a blight on their labours lay, +And ever their quarry would vanish away, + +Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone +Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone: + +And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends, +The Boh and his trackers were best of friends. + +The word of a scout -- a march by night -- +A rush through the mist -- a scattering fight -- + +A volley from cover -- a corpse in the clearing -- +The glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring -- + +The flare of a village -- the tally of slain -- +And. . .the Boh was abroad "on the raid" again! + +They cursed their luck, as the Irish will, +They gave him credit for cunning and skill, + +They buried their dead, they bolted their beef, +And started anew on the track of the thief + +Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece", men said, +"When Crook and his darlings come back with the head." + +They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain -- +He doubled and broke for the hills again: + +They had crippled his power for rapine and raid, +They had routed him out of his pet stockade, + +And at last, they came, when the Day Star tired, +To a camp deserted -- a village fired. + +A black cross blistered the Morning-gold, +And the body upon it was stark and cold. + +The wind of the dawn went merrily past, +The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast. + +And out of the grass, on a sudden, broke +A spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke -- + +And Captain O'Neil of the Black Tyrone +Was blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone -- +The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone. + +(Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wire +Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.) + + . . . . . + +The shot-wound festered -- as shot-wounds may +In a steaming barrack at Mandalay. + +The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore, +"I'd like to be after the Boh once more!" + +The fever held him -- the Captain said, +"I'd give a hundred to look at his head!" + +The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred, +But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard. + +He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank, +That girdled his home by the Dacca tank. + +He thought of his wife and his High School son, +He thought -- but abandoned the thought -- of a gun. + +His sleep was broken by visions dread +Of a shining Boh with a silver head. + +He kept his counsel and went his way, +And swindled the cartmen of half their pay. + + . . . . . + +And the months went on, as the worst must do, +And the Boh returned to the raid anew. + +But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife, +And in far Simoorie had taken a wife. + +And she was a damsel of delicate mould, +With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold, + +And little she knew the arms that embraced +Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist: + +And little she knew that the loving lips +Had ordered a quivering life's eclipse, + +And the eye that lit at her lightest breath +Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death. + +(For these be matters a man would hide, +As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.) + +And little the Captain thought of the past, +And, of all men, Babu Harendra last. + + . . . . . + +But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road, +The Government Bullock Train toted its load. + +Speckless and spotless and shining with ~ghee~, +In the rearmost cart sat the Babu-jee. + +And ever a phantom before him fled +Of a scowling Boh with a silver head. + +Then the lead-cart stuck, though the coolies slaved, +And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved; + +And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals, +Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels! + +Then belching blunderbuss answered back +The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack, + +And the blithe revolver began to sing +To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring, + +And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, +As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, + +And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes +Watched the souls of the dead arise, + +And over the smoke of the fusillade +The Peacock Banner staggered and swayed. + +Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may see +Is a well-worked rush on the G.B.T.! + +The Babu shook at the horrible sight, +And girded his ponderous loins for flight, + +But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start +On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart, + +And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe, +The Babu fell -- flat on the top of the Boh! + +For years had Harendra served the State, +To the growth of his purse and the girth of his ~p]^et~. + +There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows, +On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs. + +And twenty stone from a height discharged +Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged. + +Oh, short was the struggle -- severe was the shock -- +He dropped like a bullock -- he lay like a block; + +And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear, +Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear. + +And thus in a fashion undignified +The princely pest of the Chindwin died. + + . . . . . + +Turn now to Simoorie where, lapped in his ease, +The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees, + +Where the ~whit~ of the bullet, the wounded man's scream +Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream -- + +Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shambles +Where the hill-daisy blooms and the gray monkey gambols, + +From the sword-belt set free and released from the steel, +The Peace of the Lord is with Captain O'Neil. + + . . . . . + +Up the hill to Simoorie -- most patient of drudges -- +The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges. + +"For Captain O'Neil, ~Sahib~. One hundred and ten +Rupees to collect on delivery." + Then + +(Their breakfast was stopped while the screw-jack and hammer +Tore waxcloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer;) + +Open-eyed, open-mouthed, on the napery's snow, +With a crash and a thud, rolled -- the Head of the Boh! + +And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran: -- + "IN FIELDING FORCE SERVICE. + ~Encampment~, + 10th Jan. + +"Dear Sir, -- I have honour to send, ~as you said~, +For final approval (see under) Boh's Head; + +"Was took by myself in most bloody affair. +By High Education brought pressure to bear. + +"Now violate Liberty, time being bad, +To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred) Please add + +"Whatever Your Honour can pass. Price of Blood +Much cheap at one hundred, and children want food; + +"So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retain +True love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train, + +"And show awful kindness to satisfy me, + I am, + Graceful Master, + Your + H. MUKERJI." + + . . . . . + +As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power, +As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour, + +As a horse reaches up to the manger above, +As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love, + +From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow, +The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh. + +And e'en as he looked on the Thing where It lay +'Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins' array, + +The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days -- +The hand-to-hand scuffle -- the smoke and the blaze -- + +The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn -- +The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn -- + +The stench of the marshes -- the raw, piercing smell +When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell -- + +The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stood +Where the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood. + +As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide +The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride, + +Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year, +When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer. + +As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water, +In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter, + +And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life +Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife. + +For she who had held him so long could not hold him -- +Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him -- + +But watched the twin Terror -- the head turned to head -- +The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red -- + +The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew to +Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to. + +But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing, +And muttered aloud, "So you kept that jade earring!" + +Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend, +"Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end." + + . . . . . + +The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion: -- +"He took what I said in this horrible fashion, + +"~I'll~ write to Harendra!" With language unsainted +The Captain came back to the Bride. . .who had fainted. + + . . . . . + +And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie +And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri, + +A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin -- +She's always about on the Mall of a mornin' -- + +And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced, +This: ~Gules~ upon ~argent~, a Boh's Head, ~erased!~ + + + + + + +THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER CATTLE THIEF + + + +O woe is me for the merry life + I led beyond the Bar, +And a treble woe for my winsome wife + That weeps at Shalimar. + +They have taken away my long jezail, + My shield and sabre fine, +And heaved me into the Central jail + For lifting of the kine. + +The steer may low within the byre, + The Jat may tend his grain, +But there'll be neither loot nor fire + Till I come back again. + +And God have mercy on the Jat + When once my fetters fall, +And Heaven defend the farmer's hut + When I am loosed from thrall. + +It's woe to bend the stubborn back + Above the grinching quern, +It's woe to hear the leg-bar clack + And jingle when I turn! + +But for the sorrow and the shame, + The brand on me and mine, +I'll pay you back in leaping flame + And loss of the butchered kine. + +For every cow I spared before + In charity set free, +If I may reach my hold once more + I'll reive an honest three. + +For every time I raised the low + That scared the dusty plain, +By sword and cord, by torch and tow + I'll light the land with twain! + +Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai, + Young ~Sahib~ with the yellow hair -- +Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie, + Fat herds below Bonair! + +The one I'll shoot at twilight-tide, + At dawn I'll drive the other; +The black shall mourn for hoof and hide, + The white man for his brother. + +'Tis war, red war, I'll give you then, + War till my sinews fail; +For the wrong you have done to a chief of men, + And a thief of the Zukka Kheyl. + +And if I fall to your hand afresh + I give you leave for the sin, +That you cram my throat with the foul pig's flesh, + And swing me in the skin! + + + + +THE RHYME OF THE THREE CAPTAINS + + + + This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious + Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact. + + + . . . At the close of a winter day, +Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay; +And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye, +And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby, +And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall, +And he was Captain of the Fleet -- the bravest of them all. +Their good guns guarded their great gray sides + that were thirty foot in the sheer, +When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer. +Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze, +Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas. +Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled, +And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold. +"I ha' paid Port dues for your Law," quoth he, "and where is the Law ye boast +If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast? +Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk, +We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk; +I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare +Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre. +There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore, +And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore. +He would not fly the Rovers' flag -- the bloody or the black, +But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack. +He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew -- he swore it was only a loan; +But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own. +He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line, +He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine; +He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas, +He has taken my grinning heathen gods -- and what should he want o' these? +My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats; +He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats. +I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside, +But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied. +Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm, +I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm; +I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, +And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; +I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, +I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; +I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil, +And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; +I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, + and tasselled his beard i' the mesh, +And spitted his crew on the live bamboo + that grows through the gangrened flesh; +I had hove him down by the mangroves brown, + where the mud-reef sucks and draws, +Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab's claws! +He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose him far enow, +For he carries the taint of a musky ship -- the reek of the slaver's dhow!" +The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold, +And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold, +And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt: -- +"Good Sir, we ha' dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut. +Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus: +He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us. +We ha' sold him canvas and rope and spar -- we know that his price is fair, +And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre. +And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you, +We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true." +The skipper called to the tall taffrail: -- "And what is that to me? +Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three? +Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line? +He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine. +There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in, +But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a nigger's sin. +Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel? +Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers? + 'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?" +The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet, +For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet. +But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: -- +"We have heard a tale of a -- foreign sail, but he is a merchantman." +The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon: -- +"'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!" +By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air: -- +"We have sold our spars to the merchantman -- we know that his price is fair." +The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm: -- +"They ha' rigged him a Joseph's jury-coat to keep his honour warm." +The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad, +The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord. +Masthead -- masthead, the signal sped by the line o' the British craft; +The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed: -- +"It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all -- we'll out to the seas again -- +Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain. +It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea, + and the swing of the unbought brine -- +We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: +Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, +Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; +Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, +Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea. +Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam -- we stand on the outward tack, +We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade -- + the bezant is hard, ay, and black. +The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-Laut +How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port; +How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there +Shall dip their flag to a slaver's rag -- to show that his trade is fair!" + + + + +THE BALLAD OF THE "CLAMPHERDOWN" + + + +It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~ + Would sweep the Channel clean, +Wherefore she kept her hatches close +When the merry Channel chops arose, + To save the bleached marine. + +She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton, + And a great stern-gun beside; +They dipped their noses deep in the sea, +They racked their stays and stanchions free + In the wash of the wind-whipped tide. + +It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~, + Fell in with a cruiser light +That carried the dainty Hotchkiss gun +And a pair o' heels wherewith to run + From the grip of a close-fought fight. + +She opened fire at seven miles -- + As ye shoot at a bobbing cork -- +And once she fired and twice she fired, +Till the bow-gun drooped like a lily tired + That lolls upon the stalk. + +"Captain, the bow-gun melts apace, + The deck-beams break below, +'Twere well to rest for an hour or twain, +And botch the shattered plates again." + And he answered, "Make it so." + +She opened fire within the mile -- + As ye shoot at the flying duck -- +And the great stern-gun shot fair and true, +With the heave of the ship, to the stainless blue, + And the great stern-turret stuck. + +"Captain, the turret fills with steam, + The feed-pipes burst below -- +You can hear the hiss of the helpless ram, +You can hear the twisted runners jam." + And he answered, "Turn and go!" + +It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~, + And grimly did she roll; +Swung round to take the cruiser's fire +As the White Whale faces the Thresher's ire + When they war by the frozen Pole. + +"Captain, the shells are falling fast, + And faster still fall we; +And it is not meet for English stock +To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock + The death they cannot see." + +"Lie down, lie down, my bold A.B., + We drift upon her beam; +We dare not ram, for she can run; +And dare ye fire another gun, + And die in the peeling steam?" + +It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~ + That carried an armour-belt; +But fifty feet at stern and bow +Lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow, + To the hail of the ~Nordenfeldt~. + +"Captain, they hack us through and through; + The chilled steel bolts are swift! +We have emptied the bunkers in open sea, +Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be." + And he answered, "Let her drift." + +It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~, + Swung round upon the tide, +Her two dumb guns glared south and north, +And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth, + And she ground the cruiser's side. + +"Captain, they cry, the fight is done, + They bid you send your sword." +And he answered, "Grapple her stern and bow. +They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now; + Out cutlasses and board!" + +It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~ + Spewed up four hundred men; +And the scalded stokers yelped delight, +As they rolled in the waist and heard the fight + Stamp o'er their steel-walled pen. + +They cleared the cruiser end to end, + From conning-tower to hold. +They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet; +They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet, + As it was in the days of old. + +It was the sinking ~Clampherdown~ + Heaved up her battered side -- +And carried a million pounds in steel, +To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel, + And the scour of the Channel tide. + +It was the crew of the ~Clampherdown~ + Stood out to sweep the sea, +On a cruiser won from an ancient foe, +As it was in the days of long ago, + And as it still shall be. + + + + +THE BALLAD OF THE "BOLIVAR" + + + + Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again, + Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain: + Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away -- + We that took the ~Bolivar~ out across the Bay! + +We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails; + We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted; +We put out from Sunderland -- met the winter gales -- + Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted. + Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow, + All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below, + Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray -- + Out we took the ~Bolivar~, out across the Bay! + +One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by; + Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo'c'sle short; +Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly; + Left the ~Wolf~ behind us with a two-foot list to port. + Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul; + Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll; + Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray -- + So we threshed the ~Bolivar~ out across the Bay! + +'Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she'd break; + Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock; +Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake; + Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block. + Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal; + Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul; + Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day -- + Hi! we cursed the ~Bolivar~ knocking round the Bay! + +O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still -- + Up and down and back we went, never time for breath; +Then the money paid at Lloyd's caught her by the heel, + And the stars ran round and round dancin' at our death. + Aching for an hour's sleep, dozing off between; + 'Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green; + 'Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play -- + That was on the ~Bolivar~, south across the Bay. + +Once we saw between the squalls, lyin' head to swell -- + Mad with work and weariness, wishin' they was we -- +Some damned Liner's lights go by like a long hotel; + Cheered her from the ~Bolivar~ swampin' in the sea. + Then a grayback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed; + "Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell -- rig the winches aft! + Yoke the kicking rudder-head -- get her under way!" + So we steered her, pulley-haul, out across the Bay! + +Just a pack o' rotten plates puttied up with tar, +In we came, an' time enough, 'cross Bilbao Bar. + Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we + Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea! + + Seven men from all the world, back to town again, + Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain: + Seven men from out of Hell. Ain't the owners gay, + 'Cause we took the "Bolivar" safe across the Bay? + + + + +THE SACRIFICE OF ER-HEB + + + + Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai + Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai + Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale + Comes westward o'er the peaks to India. + +The story of Bisesa, Armod's child, -- +A maiden plighted to the Chief in War, +The Man of Sixty Spears, who held the Pass +That leads to Thibet, but to-day is gone +To seek his comfort of the God called Budh +The Silent -- showing how the Sickness ceased +Because of her who died to save the tribe. + +Taman is One and greater than us all, +Taman is One and greater than all Gods: +Taman is Two in One and rides the sky, +Curved like a stallion's croup, from dusk to dawn, +And drums upon it with his heels, whereby +Is bred the neighing thunder in the hills. + +This is Taman, the God of all Er-Heb, +Who was before all Gods, and made all Gods, +And presently will break the Gods he made, +And step upon the Earth to govern men +Who give him milk-dry ewes and cheat his Priests, +Or leave his shrine unlighted -- as Er-Heb +Left it unlighted and forgot Taman, +When all the Valley followed after Kysh +And Yabosh, little Gods but very wise, +And from the sky Taman beheld their sin. + +He sent the Sickness out upon the hills, +The Red Horse Sickness with the iron hooves, +To turn the Valley to Taman again. + +And the Red Horse snuffed thrice into the wind, +The naked wind that had no fear of him; +And the Red Horse stamped thrice upon the snow, +The naked snow that had no fear of him; +And the Red Horse went out across the rocks, +The ringing rocks that had no fear of him; +And downward, where the lean birch meets the snow, +And downward, where the gray pine meets the birch, +And downward, where the dwarf oak meets the pine, +Till at his feet our cup-like pastures lay. + +That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped, +Dropped as a cloth upon a dead man's face, +And weltered in the Valley, bluish-white +Like water very silent -- spread abroad, +Like water very silent, from the Shrine +Unlighted of Taman to where the stream +Is dammed to fill our cattle-troughs -- sent up +White waves that rocked and heaved and then were still, +Till all the Valley glittered like a marsh, +Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist +Knee-deep, so that men waded as they walked. + +That night, the Red Horse grazed above the Dam, +Beyond the cattle-troughs. Men heard him feed, +And those that heard him sickened where they lay. + +Thus came the Sickness to Er-Heb, and slew +Ten men, strong men, and of the women four; +And the Red Horse went hillward with the dawn, +But near the cattle-troughs his hoof-prints lay. + +That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped, +Dropped as a cloth upon the dead, but rose +A little higher, to a young girl's height; +Till all the Valley glittered like a lake, +Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist. + +That night, the Red Horse grazed beyond the Dam, +A stone's-throw from the troughs. Men heard him feed, +And those that heard him sickened where they lay. +Thus came the Sickness to Er-Heb, and slew +Of men a score, and of the women eight, +And of the children two. + + Because the road +To Gorukh was a road of enemies, +And Ao-Safai was blocked with early snow, +We could not flee from out the Valley. Death +Smote at us in a slaughter-pen, and Kysh +Was mute as Yabosh, though the goats were slain; +And the Red Horse grazed nightly by the stream, +And later, outward, towards the Unlighted Shrine, +And those that heard him sickened where they lay. + +Then said Bisesa to the Priests at dusk, +When the white mist rose up breast-high, and choked +The voices in the houses of the dead: -- +"Yabosh and Kysh avail not. If the Horse +Reach the Unlighted Shrine we surely die. +Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief, +Taman!" Here rolled the thunder through the Hills +And Yabosh shook upon his pedestal. +"Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief +Too long." And all were dumb save one, who cried +On Yabosh with the Sapphire 'twixt His knees, +But found no answer in the smoky roof, +And, being smitten of the Sickness, died +Before the altar of the Sapphire Shrine. + +Then said Bisesa: -- "I am near to Death, +And have the Wisdom of the Grave for gift +To bear me on the path my feet must tread. +If there be wealth on earth, then I am rich, +For Armod is the first of all Er-Heb; +If there be beauty on the earth," -- her eyes +Dropped for a moment to the temple floor, -- +"Ye know that I am fair. If there be love, +Ye know that love is mine." The Chief in War, +The Man of Sixty Spears, broke from the press, +And would have clasped her, but the Priests withstood, +Saying: -- "She has a message from Taman." +Then said Bisesa: -- "By my wealth and love +And beauty, I am chosen of the God +Taman." Here rolled the thunder through the Hills +And Kysh fell forward on the Mound of Skulls. + +In darkness, and before our Priests, the maid +Between the altars cast her bracelets down, +Therewith the heavy earrings Armod made, +When he was young, out of the water-gold +Of Gorukh -- threw the breast-plate thick with jade +Upon the turquoise anklets -- put aside +The bands of silver on her brow and neck; +And as the trinkets tinkled on the stones, +The thunder of Taman lowed like a bull. + +Then said Bisesa, stretching out her hands, +As one in darkness fearing Devils: -- "Help! +O Priests, I am a woman very weak, +And who am I to know the will of Gods? +Taman hath called me -- whither shall I go?" +The Chief in War, the Man of Sixty Spears, +Howled in his torment, fettered by the Priests, +But dared not come to her to drag her forth, +And dared not lift his spear against the Priests. +Then all men wept. + + There was a Priest of Kysh +Bent with a hundred winters, hairless, blind, +And taloned as the great Snow-Eagle is. +His seat was nearest to the altar-fires, +And he was counted dumb among the Priests. +But, whether Kysh decreed, or from Taman +The impotent tongue found utterance we know +As little as the bats beneath the eaves. +He cried so that they heard who stood without: -- +"To the Unlighted Shrine!" and crept aside +Into the shadow of his fallen God +And whimpered, and Bisesa went her way. + +That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped, +Dropped as a cloth upon the dead, and rose +Above the roofs, and by the Unlighted Shrine +Lay as the slimy water of the troughs +When murrain thins the cattle of Er-Heb: +And through the mist men heard the Red Horse feed. + +In Armod's house they burned Bisesa's dower, +And killed her black bull Tor, and broke her wheel, +And loosed her hair, as for the marriage-feast, +With cries more loud than mourning for the dead. + +Across the fields, from Armod's dwelling-place, +We heard Bisesa weeping where she passed +To seek the Unlighted Shrine; the Red Horse neighed +And followed her, and on the river-mint +His hooves struck dead and heavy in our ears. + +Out of the mists of evening, as the star +Of Ao-Safai climbs through the black snow-blur +To show the Pass is clear, Bisesa stepped +Upon the great gray slope of mortised stone, +The Causeway of Taman. The Red Horse neighed +Behind her to the Unlighted Shrine -- then fled +North to the Mountain where his stable lies. + +They know who dared the anger of Taman, +And watched that night above the clinging mists, +Far up the hill, Bisesa's passing in. + +She set her hand upon the carven door, +Fouled by a myriad bats, and black with time, +Whereon is graved the Glory of Taman +In letters older than the Ao-Safai; +And twice she turned aside and twice she wept, +Cast down upon the threshold, clamouring +For him she loved -- the Man of Sixty Spears, +And for her father, -- and the black bull Tor, +Hers and her pride. Yea, twice she turned away +Before the awful darkness of the door, +And the great horror of the Wall of Man +Where Man is made the plaything of Taman, +An Eyeless Face that waits above and laughs. + +But the third time she cried and put her palms +Against the hewn stone leaves, and prayed Taman +To spare Er-Heb and take her life for price. + +They know who watched, the doors were rent apart +And closed upon Bisesa, and the rain +Broke like a flood across the Valley, washed +The mist away; but louder than the rain +The thunder of Taman filled men with fear. + +Some say that from the Unlighted Shrine she cried +For succour, very pitifully, thrice, +And others that she sang and had no fear. +And some that there was neither song nor cry, +But only thunder and the lashing rain. + +Howbeit, in the morning men rose up, +Perplexed with horror, crowding to the Shrine. +And when Er-Heb was gathered at the doors +The Priests made lamentation and passed in +To a strange Temple and a God they feared +But knew not. + + From the crevices the grass +Had thrust the altar-slabs apart, the walls +Were gray with stains unclean, the roof-beams swelled +With many-coloured growth of rottenness, +And lichen veiled the Image of Taman +In leprosy. The Basin of the Blood +Above the altar held the morning sun: +A winking ruby on its heart: below, +Face hid in hands, the maid Bisesa lay. + + Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai + Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai + Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale + Comes westward o'er the peaks to India. + + + + +THE EXPLANATION + + + +Love and Death once ceased their strife +At the Tavern of Man's Life. +Called for wine, and threw -- alas! -- +Each his quiver on the grass. +When the bout was o'er they found +Mingled arrows strewed the ground. +Hastily they gathered then +Each the loves and lives of men. +Ah, the fateful dawn deceived! +Mingled arrows each one sheaved; +Death's dread armoury was stored +With the shafts he most abhorred; +Love's light quiver groaned beneath +Venom-headed darts of Death. + +Thus it was they wrought our woe +At the Tavern long ago. +Tell me, do our masters know, +Loosing blindly as they fly, +Old men love while young men die? + + + + +THE GIFT OF THE SEA + + + +The dead child lay in the shroud, + And the widow watched beside; +And her mother slept, and the Channel swept + The gale in the teeth of the tide. + +But the mother laughed at all. + "I have lost my man in the sea, +And the child is dead. Be still," she said, + "What more can ye do to me?" + +The widow watched the dead, + And the candle guttered low, +And she tried to sing the Passing Song + That bids the poor soul go. + +And "Mary take you now," she sang, + "That lay against my heart." +And "Mary smooth your crib to-night," + But she could not say "Depart." + +Then came a cry from the sea, + But the sea-rime blinded the glass, +And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said, + "'Tis the child that waits to pass." + +And the nodding mother sighed. + "'Tis a lambing ewe in the whin, +For why should the christened soul cry out + That never knew of sin?" + +"O feet I have held in my hand, + O hands at my heart to catch, +How should they know the road to go, + And how should they lift the latch?" + +They laid a sheet to the door, + With the little quilt atop, +That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt, + But the crying would not stop. + +The widow lifted the latch + And strained her eyes to see, +And opened the door on the bitter shore + To let the soul go free. + +There was neither glimmer nor ghost, + There was neither spirit nor spark, +And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said, + "'Tis crying for me in the dark." + +And the nodding mother sighed: + "'Tis sorrow makes ye dull; +Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern, + Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?" + +"The terns are blown inland, + The gray gull follows the plough. +'Twas never a bird, the voice I heard, + O mother, I hear it now!" + +"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still; + The child is passed from harm, +'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest, + And the feel of an empty arm." + +She put her mother aside, + "In Mary's name let be! +For the peace of my soul I must go," she said, + And she went to the calling sea. + +In the heel of the wind-bit pier, + Where the twisted weed was piled, +She came to the life she had missed by an hour, + For she came to a little child. + +She laid it into her breast, + And back to her mother she came, +But it would not feed and it would not heed, + Though she gave it her own child's name. + +And the dead child dripped on her breast, + And her own in the shroud lay stark; +And "God forgive us, mother," she said, + "We let it die in the dark!" + + + + +EVARRA AND HIS GODS + + + +~Read here: +This is the story of Evarra -- man -- +Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.~ + Because the city gave him of her gold, + Because the caravans brought turquoises, + Because his life was sheltered by the King, + So that no man should maim him, none should steal, + Or break his rest with babble in the streets + When he was weary after toil, he made + An image of his God in gold and pearl, + With turquoise diadem and human eyes, + A wonder in the sunshine, known afar, + And worshipped by the King; but, drunk with pride, + Because the city bowed to him for God, + He wrote above the shrine: "~Thus Gods are made, + And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.~" + And all the city praised him. . . . Then he died. + +~Read here the story of Evarra -- man -- +Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.~ + Because the city had no wealth to give, + Because the caravans were spoiled afar, + Because his life was threatened by the King, + So that all men despised him in the streets, + He hewed the living rock, with sweat and tears, + And reared a God against the morning-gold, + A terror in the sunshine, seen afar, + And worshipped by the King; but, drunk with pride, + Because the city fawned to bring him back, + He carved upon the plinth: "~Thus Gods are made, + And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.~" + And all the people praised him. . . . Then he died. + +~Read here the story of Evarra -- man -- +Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.~ + Because he lived among a simple folk, + Because his village was between the hills, + Because he smeared his cheeks with blood of ewes, + He cut an idol from a fallen pine, + Smeared blood upon its cheeks, and wedged a shell + Above its brows for eyes, and gave it hair + Of trailing moss, and plaited straw for crown. + And all the village praised him for this craft, + And brought him butter, honey, milk, and curds. + Wherefore, because the shoutings drove him mad, + He scratched upon that log: "~Thus Gods are made, + And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.~" + And all the people praised him. . . . Then he died. + +~Read here the story of Evarra -- man -- +Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.~ + Because his God decreed one clot of blood + Should swerve one hair's-breadth from the pulse's path, + And chafe his brain, Evarra mowed alone, + Rag-wrapped, among the cattle in the fields, + Counting his fingers, jesting with the trees, + And mocking at the mist, until his God + Drove him to labour. Out of dung and horns + Dropped in the mire he made a monstrous God, + Abhorrent, shapeless, crowned with plantain tufts, + And when the cattle lowed at twilight-time, + He dreamed it was the clamour of lost crowds, + And howled among the beasts: "~Thus Gods are made, + And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.~" + Thereat the cattle bellowed. . . . Then he died. + +Yet at the last he came to Paradise, +And found his own four Gods, and that he wrote; +And marvelled, being very near to God, +What oaf on earth had made his toil God's law, +Till God said mocking: "Mock not. These be thine." +Then cried Evarra: "I have sinned!" -- "Not so. +If thou hadst written otherwise, thy Gods +Had rested in the mountain and the mine, +And I were poorer by four wondrous Gods, +And thy more wondrous law, Evarra. Thine, +Servant of shouting crowds and lowing kine." +Thereat, with laughing mouth, but tear-wet eyes, +Evarra cast his Gods from Paradise. + +~This is the story of Evarra -- man -- +Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.~ + + + + +THE CONUNDRUM OF THE WORKSHOPS + + + +When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, +Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; +And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, +Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?" + +Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew -- +The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review; +And he left his lore to the use of his sons -- and that was a glorious gain +When the Devil chuckled "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain. + +They fought and they talked in the North and the South, + they talked and they fought in the West, +Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest -- +Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start, +And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?" + +They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart, +Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?" +The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung, +While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue. + +The tale is as old as the Eden Tree -- and new as the new-cut tooth -- +For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth; +And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart, +The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?" + +We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg, +We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg, +We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart; +But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?" + +When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room's green and gold, +The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould -- +They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, + and the ink and the anguish start, +For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?" + +Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow, +And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago, +And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through, +By the favour of God we might know as much -- as our father Adam knew! + + + + +THE LEGEND OF EVIL + + + + I + +This is the sorrowful story + Told when the twilight fails +And the monkeys walk together + Holding their neighbours' tails: -- + +"Our fathers lived in the forest, + Foolish people were they, +They went down to the cornland + To teach the farmers to play. + +"Our fathers frisked in the millet, + Our fathers skipped in the wheat, +Our fathers hung from the branches, + Our fathers danced in the street. + +"Then came the terrible farmers, + Nothing of play they knew, +Only. . .they caught our fathers + And set them to labour too! + +"Set them to work in the cornland + With ploughs and sickles and flails, +Put them in mud-walled prisons + And -- cut off their beautiful tails! + +"Now, we can watch our fathers, + Sullen and bowed and old, +Stooping over the millet, + Sharing the silly mould, + +"Driving a foolish furrow, + Mending a muddy yoke, +Sleeping in mud-walled prisons, + Steeping their food in smoke. + +"We may not speak to our fathers, + For if the farmers knew +They would come up to the forest + And set us to labour too." + +This is the horrible story + Told as the twilight fails +And the monkeys walk together + Holding their kinsmen's tails. + + + II + +'Twas when the rain fell steady an' the Ark was pitched an' ready, + That Noah got his orders for to take the bastes below; +He dragged them all together by the horn an' hide an' feather, + An' all excipt the Donkey was agreeable to go. + +Thin Noah spoke him fairly, thin talked to him sevarely, + An' thin he cursed him squarely to the glory av the Lord: -- +"Divil take the ass that bred you, and the greater ass that fed you -- + Divil go wid you, ye spalpeen!" an' the Donkey went aboard. + +But the wind was always failin', an' 'twas most onaisy sailin', + An' the ladies in the cabin couldn't stand the stable air; +An' the bastes betwuxt the hatches, they tuk an' died in batches, + Till Noah said: -- "There's wan av us that hasn't paid his fare!" + +For he heard a flusteration 'mid the bastes av all creation -- + The trumpetin' av elephints an' bellowin' av whales; +An' he saw forninst the windy whin he wint to stop the shindy + The Divil wid a stable-fork bedivillin' their tails. + +The Divil cursed outrageous, but Noah said umbrageous: -- + "To what am I indebted for this tenant-right invasion?" +An' the Divil gave for answer: -- "Evict me if you can, sir, + For I came in wid the Donkey -- on Your Honour's invitation." + + + + +THE ENGLISH FLAG + + + + Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack, + remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately + when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, + and seemed to see significance in the incident. -- DAILY PAPERS. + + +Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro -- +And what should they know of England who only England know? -- +The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, +They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag! + +Must we borrow a clout from the Boer -- to plaster anew with dirt? +An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? +We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share. +What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare! + +The North Wind blew: -- "From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go; +I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe; +By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God, +And the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod. + +"I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame, +Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came; +I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast, +And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed. + +"The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night, +The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light: +What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare, +Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!" + +The South Wind sighed: -- "From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en +Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, +Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon +Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon. + +"Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys, +I waked the palms to laughter -- I tossed the scud in the breeze -- +Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, +But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown. + +"I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn; +I have chased it north to the Lizard -- ribboned and rolled and torn; +I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; +I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free. + +"My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross, +Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross. +What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare, +Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!" + +The East Wind roared: -- "From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come, +And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home. +Look -- look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoon +I swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon! + +"The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before, +I raped your richest roadstead -- I plundered Singapore! +I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, +And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows. + +"Never the lotus closes, never the wild-fowl wake, +But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake -- +Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid -- +Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed. + +"The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows, +The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows. +What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, +Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!" + +The West Wind called: -- "In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly +That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die. +They make my might their porter, they make my house their path, +Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath. + +"I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole, +They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll, +For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath, +And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death. + +"But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day, +I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away, +First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky, +Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by. + +"The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it -- the frozen dews have kissed -- +The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist. +What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare, +Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!" + + + + +"CLEARED" + +(In Memory of a Commission) + + + +Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt, +Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt! +From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song, +The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong. + +Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! -- +By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case; +They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it, +And "coruscating innocence" the learned Judges gave it. + +Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife, +The honourable gentlemen deplored the loss of life! +Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger, +No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger! + +Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies, +Like ph]oenixes from Ph]oenix Park (and what lay there) they rise! +Go shout it to the emerald seas -- give word to Erin now, +Her honourable gentlemen are cleared -- and this is how: -- + +They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price, +They only helped the murderer with counsel's best advice, +But -- sure it keeps their honour white -- the learned Court believes +They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves. + +They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide, +They never marked a man for death -- what fault of theirs he died? -- +They only said "intimidate", and talked and went away -- +By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they! + +Their sin it was that fed the fire -- small blame to them that heard -- +The "bhoys" get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a word -- +They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too, +The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they knew. + +They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail, +They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clanna-Gael. +If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down, +They're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown. + +"Cleared", honourable gentlemen! Be thankful it's no more: -- +The widow's curse is on your house, the dead are at your door. +On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South +The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth. + +"Less black than we were painted"? -- Faith, no word of black was said; +The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red. +It's sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff, +And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off. + +Hold up those hands of innocence -- go, scare your sheep together, +The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether; +And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen, +Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again! + +"The charge is old"? -- As old as Cain -- as fresh as yesterday; +Old as the Ten Commandments -- have ye talked those laws away? +If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball, +You spoke the words that sped the shot -- the curse be on you all. + +"Our friends believe"? -- Of course they do -- as sheltered women may; +But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay? +They! -- If their own front door is shut, + they'll swear the whole world's warm; +What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm? + +The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane, +The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane, +The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees, +And shows the "bhoys" have heard your talk -- what do they know of these? + +But you -- you know -- ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead, +Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred, +The mangled stallion's scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer's low. +Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know! + +My soul! I'd sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight, +Pure crime I'd done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate, +Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered, +While one of those "not provens" proved me cleared as you are cleared. + +Cleared -- you that "lost" the League accounts -- go, guard our honour still, +Go, help to make our country's laws that broke God's law at will -- +One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal "strike again"; +The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane. + +If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down, +You're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown. +If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends: -- +We are not ruled by murderers, but only -- by their friends. + + + + +AN IMPERIAL RESCRIPT + + + +Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed, +To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need, +He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat, +That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set. + +The Lords of Their Hands assembled; from the East and the West they drew -- +Baltimore, Lille, and Essen, Brummagem, Clyde, and Crewe. +And some were black from the furnace, and some were brown from the soil, +And some were blue from the dye-vat; but all were wearied of toil. + +And the young King said: -- "I have found it, the road to the rest ye seek: +The strong shall wait for the weary, the hale shall halt for the weak; +With the even tramp of an army where no man breaks from the line, +Ye shall march to peace and plenty in the bond of brotherhood -- sign!" + +The paper lay on the table, the strong heads bowed thereby, +And a wail went up from the peoples: -- "Ay, sign -- give rest, for we die!" +A hand was stretched to the goose-quill, a fist was cramped to scrawl, +When -- the laugh of a blue-eyed maiden ran clear through the council-hall. + +And each one heard Her laughing as each one saw Her plain -- +Saidie, Mimi, or Olga, Gretchen, or Mary Jane. +And the Spirit of Man that is in Him to the light of the vision woke; +And the men drew back from the paper, as a Yankee delegate spoke: -- + +"There's a girl in Jersey City who works on the telephone; +We're going to hitch our horses and dig for a house of our own, +With gas and water connections, and steam-heat through to the top; +And, W. Hohenzollern, I guess I shall work till I drop." + +And an English delegate thundered: -- "The weak an' the lame be blowed! +I've a berth in the Sou'-West workshops, a home in the Wandsworth Road; +And till the 'sociation has footed my buryin' bill, +I work for the kids an' the missus. Pull up? I be damned if I will!" + +And over the German benches the bearded whisper ran: -- +"Lager, der girls und der dollars, dey makes or dey breaks a man. +If Schmitt haf collared der dollars, he collars der girl deremit; +But if Schmitt bust in der pizness, we collars der girl from Schmitt." + +They passed one resolution: -- "Your sub-committee believe +You can lighten the curse of Adam when you've lightened the curse of Eve. +But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, +We will work for ourself and a woman, for ever and ever, amen." + +Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser held -- +The day that they razored the Grindstone, the day that the Cat was belled, +The day of the Figs from Thistles, the day of the Twisted Sands, +The day that the laugh of a maiden made light of the Lords of Their Hands. + + + + +TOMLINSON + + + +Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square, +And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair -- +A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away, +Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way: +Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease, +And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys. +"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high +The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die -- +The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!" +And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone. +"O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide, +And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side." +-- "For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair, +But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square: +Though we called your friend from his bed this night, + he could not speak for you, +For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two." +Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there, +For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare: +The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, +And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life. +"This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me, +And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy." +The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path, +And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath. +"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, + "and the tale is yet to run: +By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer -- what ha' ye done?" +Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore, +For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before: -- +"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say, +And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway." +-- "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! + Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate; +There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate! +O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin +Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within; +Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, +And. . .the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!" + + . . . . . + +The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell +Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell: +The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain, +But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again: +They may hold their path, they may leave their path, + with never a soul to mark, +They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease + in the Scorn of the Outer Dark. +The Wind that blows between the worlds, it nipped him to the bone, +And he yearned to the flare of Hell-Gate + there as the light of his own hearth-stone. +The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew, +But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through. +"Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he, +"That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me? +I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn, +For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born. +Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high +The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die." +And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night +The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light; +And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet +The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat. +"O I had a love on earth," said he, "that kissed me to my fall, +And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all." +-- "All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair, +But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square: +Though we whistled your love from her bed to-night, I trow she would not run, +For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!" +The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, +And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life: -- +"Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave, +And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave." +The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool: -- +"Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool? +I see no worth in the hobnailed mirth or the jolthead jest ye did +That I should waken my gentlemen that are sleeping three on a grid." +Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and there was little grace, +For Hell-Gate filled the houseless Soul with the Fear of Naked Space. +"Nay, this I ha' heard," quo' Tomlinson, "and this was noised abroad, +And this I ha' got from a Belgian book on the word of a dead French lord." +-- "Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! + and the tale begins afresh -- +Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye + or the sinful lust of the flesh?" +Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, "Let me in -- +For I mind that I borrowed my neighbour's wife to sin the deadly sin." +The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high: +"Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" +The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, +And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man: +Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth: +There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of earth." +Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire, +But weep that they bin too small to sin to the height of their desire, +Over the coal they chased the Soul, and racked it all abroad, +As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard. +And back they came with the tattered Thing, as children after play, +And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away. +We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind +And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find: +We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone, +And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own." +The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low: -- +"I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go. +Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place, +My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face; +They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host, +And -- I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost." +The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame, +And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name: -- +"Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry: +Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" +The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care: -- +"Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, + "but the roots of sin are there, +And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone. +But sinful pride has rule inside -- and mightier than my own. +Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his priest and whore: +Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore. +Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said; "ye are neither book nor brute -- +Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute. +I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain, +But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again. +Get hence, the hearse is at your door -- the grim black stallions wait -- +They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late! +Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed -- go back with an open eye, +And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: +That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one -- +And. . .the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!" + + + + +L'ENVOI TO "LIFE'S HANDICAP" + + + +My new-cut ashlar takes the light + Where crimson-blank the windows flare; +By my own work, before the night, + Great Overseer I make my prayer. + +If there be good in that I wrought, + Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine; +Where I have failed to meet Thy thought + I know, through Thee, the blame is mine. + +One instant's toil to Thee denied + Stands all Eternity's offence, +Of that I did with Thee to guide + To Thee, through Thee, be excellence. + +Who, lest all thought of Eden fade, + Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain, +Godlike to muse o'er his own trade + And Manlike stand with God again. + +The depth and dream of my desire, + The bitter paths wherein I stray, +Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, + Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay! + +One stone the more swings to her place + In that dread Temple of Thy Worth -- +It is enough that through Thy grace + I saw naught common on Thy earth. + +Take not that vision from my ken; + Oh whatsoe'er may spoil or speed, +Help me to need no aid from men + That I may help such men as need! + + + + +L'ENVOI + + + +There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, + And the ricks stand gray to the sun, +Singing: -- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover, + And your English summer's done." + You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind, + And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; + You have heard the song -- how long! how long? + Pull out on the trail again! + + Ha' done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass, + We've seen the seasons through, + And it's time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new. + +It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun, + Or South to the blind Horn's hate; +Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay, + Or West to the Golden Gate; + Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass, + And the wildest tales are true, + And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + And life runs large on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new. + +The days are sick and cold, and the skies are gray and old, + And the twice-breathed airs blow damp; +And I'd sell my tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll + Of a black Bilbao tramp; + With her load-line over her hatch, dear lass, + And a drunken Dago crew, + And her nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail + From Cadiz Bar on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new. + +There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, + Or the way of a man with a maid; +But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea + In the heel of the North-East Trade. + Can you hear the crash on her bows, dear lass, + And the drum of the racing screw, + As she ships it green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + As she lifts and 'scends on the Long Trail -- + the trail that is always new? + +See the shaking funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore, + And the fenders grind and heave, +And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate, + And the fall-rope whines through the sheave; + It's "Gang-plank up and in," dear lass, + It's "Hawsers warp her through!" + And it's "All clear aft" on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + We're backing down on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new. + +O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied, + And the sirens hoot their dread! +When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless viewless deep + To the sob of the questing lead! + It's down by the Lower Hope, dear lass, + With the Gunfleet Sands in view, + Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, + our own trail, the out trail, + And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail -- + the trail that is always new. + +O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light + That holds the hot sky tame, +And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powdered floors + Where the scared whale flukes in flame! + Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass, + And her ropes are taut with the dew, + For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + We're sagging south on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new. + +Then home, get her home, where the drunken rollers comb, + And the shouting seas drive by, +And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing, + And the Southern Cross rides high! + Yes, the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass, + That blaze in the velvet blue. + They're all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + They're God's own guides on the Long Trail -- + the trail that is always new. + +Fly forward, O my heart, from the Foreland to the Start -- + We're steaming all-too slow, +And it's twenty thousand mile to our little lazy isle + Where the trumpet-orchids blow! + You have heard the call of the off-shore wind, + And the voice of the deep-sea rain; + You have heard the song -- how long! how long? + Pull out on the trail again! + + The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass, + And The Deuce knows what we may do -- + But we're back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + We're down, hull down on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new. + + + + + + +THE SEVEN SEAS + +1891-1896 + + + + + + +DEDICATION + +To the City of Bombay + + + + The Cities are full of pride, + Challenging each to each -- + This from her mountain-side, + That from her burthened beach. + + They count their ships full tale -- + Their corn and oil and wine, + Derrick and loom and bale, + And rampart's gun-flecked line; + City by City they hail: + "Hast aught to match with mine?" + + And the men that breed from them + They traffic up and down, + But cling to their cities' hem + As a child to their mother's gown. + + When they talk with the stranger bands, + Dazed and newly alone; + When they walk in the stranger lands, + By roaring streets unknown; + Blessing her where she stands + For strength above their own. + + (On high to hold her fame + That stands all fame beyond, + By oath to back the same, + Most faithful-foolish-fond; + Making her mere-breathed name + Their bond upon their bond.) + + So thank I God my birth + Fell not in isles aside -- + Waste headlands of the earth, + Or warring tribes untried -- + But that she lent me worth + And gave me right to pride. + + Surely in toil or fray + Under an alien sky, + Comfort it is to say: + "Of no mean city am I!" + + (Neither by service nor fee + Come I to mine estate -- + Mother of Cities to me, + For I was born in her gate, + Between the palms and the sea, + Where the world-end steamers wait.) + + Now for this debt I owe, + And for her far-borne cheer + Must I make haste and go + With tribute to her pier. + + And she shall touch and remit + After the use of kings + (Orderly, ancient, fit) + My deep-sea plunderings, + And purchase in all lands. + And this we do for a sign + Her power is over mine, + And mine I hold at her hands! + + + + + + +THE SEVEN SEAS + + + + + + +A SONG OF THE ENGLISH + + + + Fair is our lot -- O goodly is our heritage! + (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) + For the Lord our God Most High + He hath made the deep as dry, + He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth! + + Yea, though we sinned -- and our rulers went from righteousness -- + Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garments' hem. + Oh be ye not dismayed, + Though we stumbled and we strayed, + We were led by evil counsellors -- the Lord shall deal with them! + + Hold ye the Faith -- the Faith our Fathers seal]\ed us; + Whoring not with visions -- overwise and overstale. + Except ye pay the Lord + Single heart and single sword, + Of your children in their bondage shall He ask them treble-tale! + + Keep ye the Law -- be swift in all obedience -- + Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. + Make ye sure to each his own + That he reap where he hath sown; + By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord! + + . . . . . + + Hear now a song -- a song of broken interludes -- + A song of little cunning; of a singer nothing worth. + Through the naked words and mean + May ye see the truth between + As the singer knew and touched it in the ends of all the Earth! + + + +The Coastwise Lights + + +Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees; +Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas. +From reef and rock and skerry -- over headland, ness, and voe -- +The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go! + +Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors; +Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars -- +By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail -- +As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail. + +We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care, +The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer; +From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains +The lover from the sea-rim drawn -- his love in English lanes. + +We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool; +We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull; +To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the sea -- +The white wall-sided war-ships or the whalers of Dundee! + +Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn! +Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn! +Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us, main to main, +The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again! + +Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates; +Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights! +Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek, +The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak! + + + +The Song of the Dead + + + Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges -- + They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. + Song of the Dead in the South -- in the sun by their skeleton horses, + Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust + of the sear river-courses. + + Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle hollows, + Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof -- + in the brake of the buffalo-wallows. + Song of the Dead in the West -- + in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them, + Where the wolverene tumbles their packs + from the camp and the grave-mound they made them; + Hear now the Song of the Dead! + + + I + +We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town; +We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. +Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need, +Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead. +As the deer breaks -- as the steer breaks -- from the herd where they graze, +In the faith of little children we went on our ways. +Then the wood failed -- then the food failed -- then the last water dried -- +In the faith of little children we lay down and died. +On the sand-drift -- on the veldt-side -- in the fern-scrub we lay, +That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way. +Follow after -- follow after! We have watered the root, +And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit! +Follow after -- we are waiting, by the trails that we lost, +For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host. +Follow after -- follow after -- for the harvest is sown: +By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own! + + When Drake went down to the Horn + And England was crowned thereby, + 'Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed + Our Lodge -- our Lodge was born + (And England was crowned thereby!) + + Which never shall close again + By day nor yet by night, + While man shall take his life to stake + At risk of shoal or main + (By day nor yet by night). + + But standeth even so + As now we witness here, + While men depart, of joyful heart, + Adventure for to know + (As now bear witness here!) + + + II + +We have fed our sea for a thousand years + And she calls us, still unfed, +Though there's never a wave of all her waves + But marks our English dead: +We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest, + To the shark and the sheering gull. +If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' paid in full! + +There's never a flood goes shoreward now + But lifts a keel we manned; +There's never an ebb goes seaward now + But drops our dead on the sand -- +But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, + From the Ducies to the Swin. +If blood be the price of admiralty, +If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' paid it in! + +We must feed our sea for a thousand years, + For that is our doom and pride, +As it was when they sailed with the ~Golden Hind~, + Or the wreck that struck last tide -- +Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef + Where the ghastly blue-lights flare. +If blood be the price of admiralty, +If blood be the price of admiralty, +If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' bought it fair! + + + +The Deep-Sea Cables + + +The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar -- +Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are. +There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, +Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep. + +Here in the womb of the world -- here on the tie-ribs of earth + Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat -- +Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth -- + For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet. + +They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time; + Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun. +Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime, + And a new Word runs between: whispering, "Let us be one!" + + + +The Song of the Sons + + +One from the ends of the earth -- gifts at an open door -- +Treason has much, but we, Mother, thy sons have more! +From the whine of a dying man, from the snarl of a wolf-pack freed, +Turn, and the world is thine. Mother, be proud of thy seed! +Count, are we feeble or few? Hear, is our speech so rude? +Look, are we poor in the land? Judge, are we men of The Blood? + +Those that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go call them in -- +We that were bred overseas wait and would speak with our kin. +Not in the dark do we fight -- haggle and flout and gibe; +Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for a bribe. +Gifts have we only to-day -- Love without promise or fee -- +Hear, for thy children speak, from the uttermost parts of the sea! + + + +The Song of the Cities + + + BOMBAY + +Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen + Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands -- +A thousand mills roar through me where I glean + All races from all lands. + + + CALCUTTA + +Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built, + Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold. +Hail, England! I am Asia -- Power on silt, + Death in my hands, but Gold! + + + MADRAS + +Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow, + Wonderful kisses, so that I became +Crowned above Queens -- a withered beldame now, + Brooding on ancient fame. + + + RANGOON + +Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade? + Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone, +And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid, + Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon. + + + SINGAPORE + +Hail, Mother! East and West must seek my aid + Ere the spent gear may dare the ports afar. +The second doorway of the wide world's trade + Is mine to loose or bar. + + + HONG-KONG + +Hail, Mother! Hold me fast; my Praya sleeps + Under innumerable keels to-day. +Yet guard (and landward), or to-morrow sweeps + Thy war-ships down the bay! + + + HALIFAX + +Into the mist my guardian prows put forth, + Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie, +The Warden of the Honour of the North, + Sleepless and veiled am I! + + + QUEBEC AND MONTREAL + +Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose, + Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate. +Now wake we and remember mighty blows, + And, fearing no man, wait! + + + VICTORIA + +From East to West the circling word has passed, + Till West is East beside our land-locked blue; +From East to West the tested chain holds fast, + The well-forged link rings true! + + + CAPE TOWN + +Hail! Snatched and bartered oft from hand to hand, + I dream my dream, by rock and heath and pine, +Of Empire to the northward. Ay, one land + From Lion's Head to Line! + + + MELBOURNE + +Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place, + Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth, +Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-race + That whips our harbour-mouth! + + + SYDNEY + +Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good; + Forcing strong wills perverse to steadfastness: +The first flush of the tropics in my blood, + And at my feet Success! + + + BRISBANE + +The northern stirp beneath the southern skies -- + I build a Nation for an Empire's need, +Suffer a little, and my land shall rise, + Queen over lands indeed! + + + HOBART + +Man's love first found me; man's hate made me Hell; + For my babes' sake I cleansed those infamies. +Earnest for leave to live and labour well, + God flung me peace and ease. + + + AUCKLAND + +Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart -- + On us, on us the unswerving season smiles, +Who wonder 'mid our fern why men depart + To seek the Happy Isles! + + + +England's Answer + + +Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban; +Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man. +Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare; +Stark as your sons shall be -- stern as your fathers were. +Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether, +But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together. +My arm is nothing weak, my strength is not gone by; +Sons, I have borne many sons, but my dugs are not dry. +Look, I have made ye a place and opened wide the doors, +That ye may talk together, your Barons and Councillors -- +Wards of the Outer March, Lords of the Lower Seas, +Ay, talk to your gray mother that bore you on her knees! -- +That ye may talk together, brother to brother's face -- +Thus for the good of your peoples -- thus for the Pride of the Race. +Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures, +I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours: +In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all, +That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall. +Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands, +And the Law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands. +This for the waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle-bloom, +This for the Maple-leaf, and that for the southern Broom. +The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not press my will, +Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still. +Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you, +After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few. +Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways, +Balking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise. +Stand to your work and be wise -- certain of sword and pen, +Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men! + + + + +THE FIRST CHANTEY + + + +Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her; +Haling her dumb from the camp, took her and bound her. +Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved her; +Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved her. + +Swift through the forest we ran; none stood to guard us, +Few were my people and far; then the flood barred us -- +Him we call Son of the Sea, sullen and swollen. +Panting we waited the death, stealer and stolen. + +Yet ere they came to my lance laid for the slaughter, +Lightly she leaped to a log lapped in the water; +Holding on high and apart skins that arrayed her, +Called she the God of the Wind that He should aid her. + +Life had the tree at that word (Praise we the Giver!) +Otter-like left he the bank for the full river. +Far fell their axes behind, flashing and ringing, +Wonder was on me and fear -- yet she was singing! + +Low lay the land we had left. Now the blue bound us, +Even the Floor of the Gods level around us. +Whisper there was not, nor word, shadow nor showing, +Till the light stirred on the deep, glowing and growing. + +Then did He leap to His place flaring from under, +He the Compeller, the Sun, bared to our wonder. +Nay, not a league from our eyes blinded with gazing, +Cleared He the gate of the world, huge and amazing! + +This we beheld (and we live) -- the Pit of the Burning! +Then the God spoke to the tree for our returning; +Back to the beach of our flight, fearless and slowly, +Back to our slayers went he: but we were holy. + +Men that were hot in that hunt, women that followed, +Babes that were promised our bones, trembled and wallowed: +Over the necks of the Tribe crouching and fawning -- +Prophet and priestess we came back from the dawning! + + + + +THE LAST CHANTEY + +"~And there was no more sea.~" + + + +Thus said The Lord in the Vault above the Cherubim + Calling to the Angels and the Souls in their degree: + "Lo! Earth has passed away + On the smoke of Judgment Day. + That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?" + +Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners: + "Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl and flee! + But the war is done between us, + In the deep the Lord hath seen us -- + Our bones we'll leave the barracout', and God may sink the sea!" + +Then said the soul of Judas that betray]\ed Him: + "Lord, hast Thou forgotten Thy covenant with me? + How once a year I go + To cool me on the floe? + And Ye take my day of mercy if Ye take away the sea!" + +Then said the soul of the Angel of the Off-shore Wind: + (He that bits the thunder when the bull-mouthed breakers flee): + "I have watch and ward to keep + O'er Thy wonders on the deep, + And Ye take mine honour from me if Ye take away the sea!" + +Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners: + "Nay, but we were angry, and a hasty folk are we! + If we worked the ship together + Till she foundered in foul weather, + Are we babes that we should clamour for a vengeance on the sea?" + +Then said the souls of the slaves that men threw overboard: + "Kennelled in the picaroon a weary band were we; + But Thy arm was strong to save, + And it touched us on the wave, + And we drowsed the long tides idle till Thy Trumpets tore the sea." + +Then cried the soul of the stout Apostle Paul to God: + "Once we frapped a ship, and she laboured woundily. + There were fourteen score of these, + And they blessed Thee on their knees, + When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under Malta by the sea!" + +Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, + Plucking at their harps, and they plucked unhandily: + "Our thumbs are rough and tarred, + And the tune is something hard -- + May we lift a Deep-sea Chantey such as seamen use at sea?" + +Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adventurers -- + Fettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity: + "Ho, we revel in our chains + O'er the sorrow that was Spain's; + Heave or sink it, leave or drink it, we were masters of the sea!" + +Up spake the soul of a gray Gothavn 'speckshioner -- + (He that led the flinching in the fleets of fair Dundee): + "Oh, the ice-blink white and near, + And the bowhead breaching clear! + Will Ye whelm them all for wantonness that wallow in the sea?" + +Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, + Crying: "Under Heaven, here is neither lead nor lee! + Must we sing for evermore + On the windless, glassy floor? + Take back your golden fiddles and we'll beat to open sea!" + +Then stooped the Lord, and He called the good sea up to Him, + And 'stablished his borders unto all eternity, + That such as have no pleasure + For to praise the Lord by measure, + They may enter into galleons and serve Him on the sea. + + Sun, wind, and cloud shall fail not from the face of it, + Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying free; + And the ships shall go abroad + To the Glory of the Lord + Who heard the silly sailor-folk and gave them back their sea! + + + + + + + + + +THE MERCHANTMEN + + + +King Solomon drew merchantmen, + Because of his desire +For peacocks, apes, and ivory, + From Tarshish unto Tyre: +With cedars out of Lebanon + Which Hiram rafted down, +But we be only sailormen + That use in London Town. + + Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again -- + Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits -- + Plain-sail -- storm-sail -- lay your board and tack again -- + And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots! + +We bring no store of ingots, + Of spice or precious stones, +But that we have we gathered + With sweat and aching bones: +In flame beneath the tropics, + In frost upon the floe, +And jeopardy of every wind + That does between them go. + +And some we got by purchase, + And some we had by trade, +And some we found by courtesy + Of pike and carronade -- +At midnight, 'mid-sea meetings, + For charity to keep, +And light the rolling homeward-bound + That rode a foot too deep. + +By sport of bitter weather + We're walty, strained, and scarred +From the kentledge on the kelson + To the slings upon the yard. +Six oceans had their will of us + To carry all away -- +Our galley's in the Baltic, + And our boom's in Mossel Bay! + +We've floundered off the Texel, + Awash with sodden deals, +We've slipped from Valparaiso + With the Norther at our heels: +We've ratched beyond the Crossets + That tusk the Southern Pole, +And dipped our gunnels under + To the dread Agulhas roll. + +Beyond all outer charting + We sailed where none have sailed, +And saw the land-lights burning + On islands none have hailed; +Our hair stood up for wonder, + But, when the night was done, +There danced the deep to windward + Blue-empty 'neath the sun! + +Strange consorts rode beside us + And brought us evil luck; +The witch-fire climbed our channels, + And flared on vane and truck: +Till, through the red tornado, + That lashed us nigh to blind, +We saw The Dutchman plunging, + Full canvas, head to wind! + +We've heard the Midnight Leadsman + That calls the black deep down -- +Ay, thrice we've heard The Swimmer, + The Thing that may not drown. +On frozen bunt and gasket + The sleet-cloud drave her hosts, +When, manned by more than signed with us, + We passed the Isle o' Ghosts! + +And north, amid the hummocks, + A biscuit-toss below, +We met the silent shallop + That frighted whalers know; +For, down a cruel ice-lane, + That opened as he sped, +We saw dead Henry Hudson + Steer, North by West, his dead. + +So dealt God's waters with us + Beneath the roaring skies, +So walked His signs and marvels + All naked to our eyes: +But we were heading homeward + With trade to lose or make -- +Good Lord, they slipped behind us + In the tailing of our wake! + +Let go, let go the anchors; + Now shamed at heart are we +To bring so poor a cargo home + That had for gift the sea! +Let go the great bow-anchors -- + Ah, fools were we and blind -- +The worst we stored with utter toil, + The best we left behind! + + Coastwise -- cross-seas -- round the world and back again, + Whither flaw shall fail us or the Trades drive down: + Plain-sail -- storm-sail -- lay your board and tack again -- + And all to bring a cargo up to London Town! + + + + +M'ANDREW'S HYMN + + + +Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, +An', taught by time, I tak' it so -- exceptin' always Steam. +From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God -- +Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod. +John Calvin might ha' forged the same -- enorrmous, certain, slow -- +Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame -- ~my~ "Institutio". +I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; +I'll stand the middle watch up here -- alone wi' God an' these +My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain +Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again. +Slam-bang too much -- they knock a wee -- the crosshead-gibs are loose; +But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse. . . . +Fine, clear an' dark -- a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o' sight, +An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night! +His wife's at Plymouth. . . . Seventy -- + One -- Two -- Three since he began -- +Three turns for Mistress Ferguson. . .and who's to blame the man? +There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow, +Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago. +(The year the ~Sarah Sands~ was burned. Oh roads we used to tread, +Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws -- fra' Govan to Parkhead!) +Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say: +"Good-morrn, M'Andrew! Back again? An' how's your bilge to-day?" +Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair +To drink Madeira wi' three Earls -- the auld Fleet Engineer, +That started as a boiler-whelp -- when steam and he were low. +I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow. +Ten pound was all the pressure then -- Eh! Eh! -- a man wad drive; +An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder fifty-five! +We're creepin' on wi' each new rig -- less weight an' larger power: +There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour! +Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began +Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what about the man? +The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea: +Four time the span from earth to moon. . . . How far, O Lord, from Thee? +That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon? +It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon. +Three feet were on the stokehold-floor -- just slappin' to an' fro -- +An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show. +Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns -- deep in my soul an' black, +An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back. +The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the seas, +Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. . . . Forgie's our trespasses. +Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze, +The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel stays; +Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill my cup o' wrong -- +Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong-Kong! +Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode -- +Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road! +An' waur than all -- my crownin' sin -- rank blasphemy an' wild. +I was not four and twenty then -- Ye wadna judge a child? +I'd seen the Tropics first that run -- new fruit, new smells, new air -- +How could I tell -- blind-fou wi' sun -- the Deil was lurkin' there? +By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes; +By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies, +In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets -- +An ijjit grinnin' in a dream -- for shells an' parrakeets, +An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried -- +Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside. +Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca', +Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "M'Andrew, come awa'!" +Firm, clear an' low -- no haste, no hate -- the ghostly whisper went, +Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument: +"Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel', +Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell. +They mak' Him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt, +A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt, +Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod, +But come wi' Us" (Now, who were ~They~?) "an' know the Leevin' God, +That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest, +But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast." +An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice -- +For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. +'Twas on me like a thunderclap -- it racked me through an' through -- +Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an' new -- +The Sin against the Holy Ghost? . . . An' under all, our screw. +That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell, +Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell. +Third on the ~Mary Gloster~ then, and first that night in Hell! +Yet was Thy hand beneath my head, about my feet Thy care -- +Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair, +But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer! +We dared not run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire, +An' I was drowsin' on the hatch -- sick -- sick wi' doubt an' tire: +"~Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire!~" +Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs -- again, an' once again, +When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'-chain; +An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty plain. +Light on the engine-room -- no more -- bright as our carbons burn. +I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past return. + + . . . . . + +Obsairve. Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard -- +Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, +But -- average fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra' port to port -- +I ~am~ o' service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought? +Maybe they steam from grace to wrath -- to sin by folly led, -- +It isna mine to judge their path -- their lives are on my head. +Mine at the last -- when all is done it all comes back to me, +The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea. +We'll tak' one stretch -- three weeks an' odd by any road ye steer -- +Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington -- ye need an engineer. +Fail there -- ye've time to weld your shaft -- ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke; +Or make Kerguelen under sail -- three jiggers burned wi' smoke! +An' home again, the Rio run: it's no child's play to go +Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe an' blow -- +The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an' turn an' shift +Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the big South drift. +(Hail, snow an' ice that praise the Lord: I've met them at their work, +An' wished we had anither route or they anither kirk.) +Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for though Thy Power brings +All skill to naught, Ye'll understand a man must think o' things. +Then, at the last, we'll get to port an' hoist their baggage clear -- +The passengers, wi' gloves an' canes -- an' this is what I'll hear: +"Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The tender's comin' now." +While I go testin' follower-bolts an' watch the skipper bow. +They've words for every one but me -- shake hands wi' half the crew, +Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they never knew. +An' yet I like the wark for all we've dam' few pickin's here -- +No pension, an' the most we earn's four hunder pound a year. +Better myself abroad? Maybe. ~I'd~ sooner starve than sail +Wi' such as call a snifter-rod ~ross~. . .French for nightingale. +Commeesion on my stores? Some do; but I can not afford +To lie like stewards wi' patty-pans --. I'm older than the Board. +A bonus on the coal I save? Ou ay, the Scots are close, +But when I grudge the strength Ye gave I'll grudge their food to ~those~. +(There's bricks that I might recommend -- an' clink the fire-bars cruel. +No! Welsh -- Wangarti at the worst -- an' damn all patent fuel!) +Inventions? Ye must stay in port to mak' a patent pay. +My Deeferential Valve-Gear taught me how that business lay, +I blame no chaps wi' clearer head for aught they make or sell. +~I~ found that I could not invent an' look to these -- as well. +So, wrestled wi' Apollyon -- Nah! -- fretted like a bairn -- +But burned the workin'-plans last run wi' all I hoped to earn. +Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant to me -- +E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. . . . +~Below there! Oiler! What's your wark? Ye find it runnin' hard? +Ye needn't swill the cap wi' oil -- this isn't the Cunard! +Ye thought? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again!~ +Tck! Tck! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain! +Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee +Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. +The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, +Till for the sake of -- well, a kiss -- I tak' 'em down below. +That minds me of our Viscount loon -- Sir Kenneth's kin -- the chap +Wi' Russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap. +I showed him round last week, o'er all -- an' at the last says he: +"Mister M'Andrew, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea?" +Damned ijjit! I'd been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws, +Manholin', on my back -- the cranks three inches off my nose. +Romance! Those first-class passengers they like it very well, +Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't poets tell? +I'm sick of all their quirks an' turns -- the loves an' doves they dream -- +Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o' Steam! +To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra sublime +Whaurto -- uplifted like the Just -- the tail-rods mark the time. +The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an' heaves, +An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves: +Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides, +Till -- hear that note? -- the rod's return + whings glimmerin' through the guides. +They're all awa'! True beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes +Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamos. +Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed, +To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate o' speed. +Fra' skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed, +An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made; +While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust-block says: +"Not unto us the praise, or man -- not unto us the praise!" +Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson -- theirs an' mine: +"Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline!" +Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roarin' they arose, +An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' the blows. +Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer strain, +Till even first-class passengers could tell the meanin' plain! +But no one cares except mysel' that serve an' understand +My seven thousand horse-power here. + Eh, Lord! They're grand -- they're grand! +Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, +Were Ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good? +Not so! O' that warld-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, +Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man -- the Arrtifex! +~That~ holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, +An' by that light -- now, mark my word -- we'll build the Perfect Ship. +I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve -- not I. +But I ha' lived an' I ha' worked. 'Be thanks to Thee, Most High! +An' I ha' done what I ha' done -- judge Thou if ill or well -- +Always Thy Grace preventin' me. . . . + Losh! Yon's the "Stand by" bell. +Pilot so soon? His flare it is. The mornin'-watch is set. +Well, God be thanked, as I was sayin', I'm no Pelagian yet. +Now I'll tak' on. . . . + ~'Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought +What your good leddy costs in coal? . . . I'll burn 'em down to port.~ + + + + +THE MIRACLES + + + +I sent a message to my dear -- + A thousand leagues and more to Her -- +The dumb sea-levels thrilled to hear, + And Lost Atlantis bore to Her. + +Behind my message hard I came, + And nigh had found a grave for me; +But that I launched of steel and flame + Did war against the wave for me. + +Uprose the deep, by gale on gale, + To bid me change my mind again -- +He broke his teeth along my rail, + And, roaring, swung behind again. + +I stayed the sun at noon to tell + My way across the waste of it; +I read the storm before it fell + And made the better haste of it. + +Afar, I hailed the land at night -- + The towers I built had heard of me -- +And, ere my rocket reached its height, + Had flashed my Love the word of me. + +Earth sold her chosen men of strength + (They lived and strove and died for me) +To drive my road a nation's length, + And toss the miles aside for me. + +I snatched their toil to serve my needs -- + Too slow their fleetest flew for me -- +I tired twenty smoking steeds, + And bade them bait a new for me. + +I sent the lightnings forth to see + Where hour by hour She waited me. +Among ten million one was She, + And surely all men hated me! + +Dawn ran to meet me at my goal -- + Ah, day no tongue shall tell again! +And little folk of little soul + Rose up to buy and sell again! + + + + +THE NATIVE-BORN + + + + We've drunk to the Queen -- God bless her! -- + We've drunk to our mothers' land; + We've drunk to our English brother + (But he does not understand); + We've drunk to the wide creation, + And the Cross swings low for the morn; + Last toast, and of obligation, + A health to the Native-born! + + They change their skies above them, + But not their hearts that roam! + We learned from our wistful mothers + To call old England "home"; + We read of the English skylark, + Of the spring in the English lanes, + But we screamed with the painted lories + As we rode on the dusty plains! + + They passed with their old-world legends -- + Their tales of wrong and dearth -- + Our fathers held by purchase, + But we by the right of birth; + Our heart's where they rocked our cradle, + Our love where we spent our toil, + And our faith and our hope and our honour + We pledge to our native soil! + + I charge you charge your glasses -- + I charge you drink with me + To the men of the Four New Nations, + And the Islands of the Sea -- + To the last least lump of coral + That none may stand outside, + And our own good pride shall teach us + To praise our comrade's pride! + +To the hush of the breathless morning + On the thin, tin, crackling roofs, +To the haze of the burned back-ranges + And the dust of the shoeless hoofs -- +To the risk of a death by drowning, + To the risk of a death by drouth -- +To the men of a million acres, + To the Sons of the Golden South! + + To the Sons of the Golden South (Stand up!), + And the life we live and know, + Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about, + If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about + With the weight of a single blow! + +To the smoke of a hundred coasters, + To the sheep on a thousand hills, +To the sun that never blisters, + To the rain that never chills -- +To the land of the waiting spring-time, + To our five-meal, meat-fed men, +To the tall, deep-bosomed women, + And the children nine and ten! + + And the children nine and ten (Stand up!), + And the life we live and know, + Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about, + If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about + With the weight of a two-fold blow! + +To the far-flung fenceless prairie + Where the quick cloud-shadows trail, +To our neighbour's barn in the offing + And the line of the new-cut rail; +To the plough in her league-long furrow + With the gray Lake gulls behind -- +To the weight of a half-year's winter + And the warm wet western wind! + +To the home of the floods and thunder, + To her pale dry healing blue -- +To the lift of the great Cape combers, + And the smell of the baked Karroo. +To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head -- + To the reef and the water-gold, +To the last and the largest Empire, + To the map that is half unrolled! + +To our dear dark foster-mothers, + To the heathen songs they sung -- +To the heathen speech we babbled + Ere we came to the white man's tongue. +To the cool of our deep verandas -- + To the blaze of our jewelled main, +To the night, to the palms in the moonlight, + And the fire-fly in the cane! + +To the hearth of our people's people -- + To her well-ploughed windy sea, +To the hush of our dread high-altar + Where The Abbey makes us We; +To the grist of the slow-ground ages, + To the gain that is yours and mine -- +To the Bank of the Open Credit, + To the Power-house of the Line! + +We've drunk to the Queen -- God bless her! -- + We've drunk to our mothers' land; +We've drunk to our English brother + (And we hope he'll understand). +We've drunk as much as we're able, + And the Cross swings low for the morn; +Last toast -- and your foot on the table! -- + A health to the Native-born! + + A health to the Native-born (Stand up!), + We're six white men arow, + All bound to sing o' the little things we care about, + All bound to fight for the little things we care about + With the weight of a six-fold blow! + By the might of our cable-tow (Take hands!), + From the Orkneys to the Horn, + All round the world (and a little loop to pull it by), + All round the world (and a little strap to buckle it), + A health to the Native-born! + + + + +THE KING + + + +"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said; + "With bone well carved he went away, +Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead, + And jasper tips the spear to-day. +Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, +And he with these. Farewell, Romance!" + +"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; + "We lift the weight of flatling years; +The caverns of the mountain-side + Hold him who scorns our hutted piers. +Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell, +Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!" + +"Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke; + "By sleight of sword we may not win, +But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke + Of arquebus and culverin. +Honour is lost, and none may tell +Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!" + +"Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried; + Our keels ha' lain with every sea; +The dull-returning wind and tide + Heave up the wharf where we would be; +The known and noted breezes swell +Our trudging sail. Romance, farewell!" + +"Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said; + "He vanished with the coal we burn; +Our dial marks full steam ahead, + Our speed is timed to half a turn. +Sure as the ferried barge we ply +'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!" + +"Romance!" the season-tickets mourn, + "~He~ never ran to catch his train, +But passed with coach and guard and horn -- + And left the local -- late again!" +Confound Romance! . . . And all unseen +Romance brought up the nine-fifteen. + +His hand was on the lever laid, + His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks, +His whistle waked the snowbound grade, + His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks; +By dock and deep and mine and mill +The Boy-god reckless laboured still! + +Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell, + Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, +With unconsidered miracle, + Hedged in a backward-gazing world; +Then taught his chosen bard to say: +"Our King was with us -- yesterday!" + + + + +THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS + + + + Away by the lands of the Japanee + Where the paper lanterns glow + And the crews of all the shipping drink + In the house of Blood Street Joe, + At twilight, when the landward breeze + Brings up the harbour noise, + And ebb of Yokohama Bay + Swigs chattering through the buoys, + In Cisco's Dewdrop Dining-Rooms + They tell the tale anew + Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight, + When the ~Baltic~ ran from the ~Northern Light~ + And the ~Stralsund~ fought the two. + +Now this is the Law of the Muscovite, that he proves with shot and steel, +When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye must not take the seal, +Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves, +And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin + and the seal they breed for themselves; +For when the ~matkas~ seek the shore to drop their pups aland, +The great man-seal haul out of the sea, a-roaring, band by band; +And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath, +The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path. +Then dark they lie and stark they lie -- rookery, dune, and floe, +And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow; +And God Who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe, +He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the wind along the snow. +But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear, +The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year. +English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank, +And some be Scot, but the worst of the lot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank! + +It was the sealer ~Northern Light~, to the Smoky Seas she bore, +With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore. +(~Baltic~, ~Stralsund~, and ~Northern Light~ -- + oh! they were birds of a feather -- +Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!) +And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein, +But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin. +There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur, +When the ~Northern Light~ drove into the bight + and the sea-mist drove with her. +The ~Baltic~ called her men and weighed -- she could not choose but run -- +For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun. +(And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and ship +And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip.) +She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins, +And the ~Northern Light~ sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins. +They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear, +When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near. +Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed -- three of them, black, abeam, +And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam. + +There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free, +And the ~Northern Light~ stood out again, goose-winged to open sea. +(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian law +To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw.) +They had not run a mile from shore -- they heard no shots behind -- +When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind: +"Bluffed -- raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall, +You must set a thief to catch a thief -- and a thief has caught us all! +By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine, +The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine! +He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, + and, faith, he has faked her well -- +But I'd know the ~Stralsund~'s deckhouse yet from here to the booms o' Hell. +Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier, +But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here -- +The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our seal +With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal! +Ring and blow for the ~Baltic~ now, and head her back to the bay, +And we'll come into the game again -- with a double deck to play!" + +They rang and blew the sealers' call -- the poaching cry of the sea -- +And they raised the ~Baltic~ out of the mist, and an angry ship was she: +And blind they groped through the whirling white and blind to the bay again, +Till they heard the creak of the ~Stralsund~'s boom + and the clank of her mooring chain. +They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts, +And: "Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?" + +A dog-toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine, and bared his flenching-knife. +"Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life; +But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see, +And there's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three: +So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill, +And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill!" + +Answered the snap of a closing lock and the jar of a gun-butt slid, +But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did. +The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak, +And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke. +The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free +(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!), +The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue, +But three were down on the ~Baltic~'s deck and two of the ~Stralsund~'s crew. +An arm's-length out and overside the banked fog held them bound, +But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound. +For one cried out on the Name of God, and one to have him cease, +And the questing volley found them both and bade them hold their peace; +And one called out on a heathen joss and one on the Virgin's Name, +And the schooling bullet leaped across and showed them whence they came. +And in the waiting silences the rudder whined beneath, +And each man drew his watchful breath slow taken 'tween the teeth -- +Trigger and ear and eye acock, knit brow and hard-drawn lips -- +Bracing his feet by chock and cleat for the rolling of the ships. +Till they heard the cough of a wounded man that fought in the fog for breath, +Till they heard the torment of Reuben Paine that wailed upon his death: + +"The tides they'll go through Fundy Race but I'll go nevermore +And see the hogs from ebb-tide mark turn scampering back to shore. +No more I'll see the trawlers drift below the Bass Rock ground, +Or watch the tall Fall steamer lights tear blazing up the Sound. +Sorrow is me, in a lonely sea and a sinful fight I fall, +But if there's law o' God or man you'll swing for it yet, Tom Hall!" +Tom Hall stood up by the quarter-rail. "Your words in your teeth," said he. +"There's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three. +So go in grace with Him to face, and an ill-spent life behind, +And I'll be good to your widows, Rube, as many as I shall find." + +A ~Stralsund~ man shot blind and large, and a war-lock Finn was he, +And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's-breadth over the knee. +Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath, +"You'll wait a little, Rube," he said, "the Devil has called for both. +The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close, +And we'll go up to the Wrath of God as the holluschickie goes. +O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles by, +We've fought our fight, and the best are down. Let up and let us die! +Quit firing, by the bow there -- quit! Call off the ~Baltic~'s crew! +You're sure of Hell as me or Rube -- but wait till we get through." +There went no word between the ships, but thick and quick and loud +The life-blood drummed on the dripping decks, + with the fog-dew from the shroud, +The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to gunnel laid, +And they felt the sheerstrakes pound and clear, but never a word was said. + +Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit passed: +"Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last? +Curse on her work that has nipped me here with a shifty trick unkind -- +I have gotten my death where I got my bread, but I dare not face it blind. +Curse on the fog! Is there never a wind of all the winds I knew +To clear the smother from off my chest, and let me look at the blue?" +The good fog heard -- like a splitten sail, to left and right she tore, +And they saw the sun-dogs in the haze and the seal upon the shore. +Silver and gray ran spit and bay to meet the steel-backed tide, +And pinched and white in the clearing light the crews stared overside. +O rainbow-gay the red pools lay that swilled and spilled and spread, +And gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled between the careless dead -- +The dead that rocked so drunkenwise to weather and to lee, +And they saw the work their hands had done as God had bade them see. + +And a little breeze blew over the rail that made the headsails lift, +But no man stood by wheel or sheet, and they let the schooners drift. +And the rattle rose in Reuben's throat and he cast his soul with a cry, +And "Gone already?" Tom Hall he said. "Then it's time for me to die." +His eyes were heavy with great sleep and yearning for the land, +And he spoke as a man that talks in dreams, his wound beneath his hand. +"Oh, there comes no good o' the westering wind that backs against the sun; +Wash down the decks -- they're all too red -- and share the skins and run, +~Baltic~, ~Stralsund~, and ~Northern Light~ -- clean share and share for all, +You'll find the fleets off Tolstoi Mees, but you will not find Tom Hall. +Evil he did in shoal-water and blacker sin on the deep, +But now he's sick of watch and trick and now he'll turn and sleep. +He'll have no more of the crawling sea that made him suffer so, +But he'll lie down on the killing-grounds where the holluschickie go. +And west you'll sail and south again, beyond the sea-fog's rim, +And tell the Yoshiwara girls to burn a stick for him. +And you'll not weight him by the heels and dump him overside, +But carry him up to the sand-hollows to die as Bering died, +And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair, +And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!" + + Half-steam ahead by guess and lead, for the sun is mostly veiled -- + Through fog to fog, by luck and log, sail ye as Bering sailed; + And if the light shall lift aright to give your landfall plain, + North and by west, from Zapne Crest, ye raise the Crosses Twain. + Fair marks are they to the inner bay, the reckless poacher knows + What time the scarred see-catchie lead their sleek seraglios. + Ever they hear the floe-pack clear, and the blast of the old bull-whale, + And the deep seal-roar that beats off-shore above the loudest gale. + Ever they wait the winter's hate as the thundering ~boorga~ calls, + Where northward look they to St. George, and westward to St. Paul's. + Ever they greet the hunted fleet -- lone keels off headlands drear -- + When the sealing-schooners flit that way at hazard year by year. + Ever in Yokohama port men tell the tale anew + Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight, + When the ~Baltic~ ran from the ~Northern Light~ + And the ~Stralsund~ fought the two. + + + + +THE DERELICT + +~And reports the derelict ~Mary Pollock~ still at sea.~ + SHIPPING NEWS. + + + + I was the staunchest of our fleet + Till the sea rose beneath our feet + Unheralded, in hatred past all measure. + Into his pits he stamped my crew, + Buffeted, blinded, bound and threw, + Bidding me eyeless wait upon his pleasure. + + Man made me, and my will + Is to my maker still, +Whom now the currents con, the rollers steer -- + Lifting forlorn to spy + Trailed smoke along the sky, +Falling afraid lest any keel come near! + + Wrenched as the lips of thirst, + Wried, dried, and split and burst, +Bone-bleached my decks, wind-scoured to the graining; + And jarred at every roll + The gear that was my soul +Answers the anguish of my beams' complaining. + + For life that crammed me full, + Gangs of the prying gull +That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches! + For roar that dumbed the gale, + My hawse-pipes guttering wail, +Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted watches! + + Blind in the hot blue ring + Through all my points I swing -- +Swing and return to shift the sun anew. + Blind in my well-known sky + I hear the stars go by, +Mocking the prow that cannot hold one true! + + White on my wasted path + Wave after wave in wrath +Frets 'gainst his fellow, warring where to send me. + Flung forward, heaved aside, + Witless and dazed I bide +The mercy of the comber that shall end me. + + North where the bergs careen, + The spray of seas unseen +Smokes round my head and freezes in the falling; + South where the corals breed, + The footless, floating weed +Folds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawling. + + I that was clean to run + My race against the sun -- +Strength on the deep, am bawd to all disaster -- + Whipped forth by night to meet + My sister's careless feet, +And with a kiss betray her to my master! + + Man made me, and my will + Is to my maker still -- +To him and his, our peoples at their pier: + Lifting in hope to spy + Trailed smoke along the sky, +Falling afraid lest any keel come near! + + + + +THE ANSWER + + + +A Rose, in tatters on the garden path, +Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath, +Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush +Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush. +And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun, +Had pity, whispering to that luckless one, +"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well -- +What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell?" +And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour +A voice said, `Father, wherefore falls the flower? +For lo, the very gossamers are still.' +And a voice answered, `Son, by Allah's will!'" + +Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward, +Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord: +"Sister, before We smote the dark in twain, +Ere yet the stars saw one another plain, +Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task +That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask." +Whereat the withered flower, all content, +Died as they die whose days are innocent; +While he who questioned why the flower fell +Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE BANJO + + + +You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile -- + You mustn't leave a fiddle in the damp -- +You couldn't raft an organ up the Nile, + And play it in an Equatorial swamp. +~I~ travel with the cooking-pots and pails -- + ~I'm~ sandwiched 'tween the coffee and the pork -- +And when the dusty column checks and tails, + You should hear me spur the rear-guard to a walk! + With my "~Pilly-willy-winky-winky popp!~" + [Oh, it's any tune that comes into my head!] + So I keep 'em moving forward till they drop; + So I play 'em up to water and to bed. + +In the silence of the camp before the fight, + When it's good to make your will and say your prayer, +You can hear my ~strumpty-tumpty~ overnight + Explaining ten to one was always fair. +I'm the Prophet of the Utterly Absurd, + Of the Patently Impossible and Vain -- +And when the Thing that Couldn't has occurred, + Give me time to change my leg and go again. + With my "~Tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tum-pa tump!~" + In the desert where the dung-fed camp-smoke curled + There was never voice before us till I led our lonely chorus, + I -- the war-drum of the White Man round the world! + +By the bitter road the Younger Son must tread, + Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own, -- +'Mid the riot of the shearers at the shed, + In the silence of the herder's hut alone -- +In the twilight, on a bucket upside down, + Hear me babble what the weakest won't confess -- +I am Memory and Torment -- I am Town! + I am all that ever went with evening dress! + With my "~Tunk-a tunka-tunka-tunka-tunk!~" + [So the lights -- the London Lights -- grow near and plain!] + So I rowel 'em afresh towards the Devil and the Flesh, + Till I bring my broken rankers home again. + +In desire of many marvels over sea, + Where the new-raised tropic city sweats and roars, +I have sailed with Young Ulysses from the quay + Till the anchor rumbled down on stranger shores. +He is blooded to the open and the sky, + He is taken in a snare that shall not fail, +He shall hear me singing strongly, till he die, + Like the shouting of a backstay in a gale. + With my "~Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! Haul!~" + [O the green that thunders aft along the deck!] + Are you sick o' towns and men? You must sign and sail again, + For it's "Johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit and trek!" + +Through the gorge that gives the stars at noon-day clear -- + Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our wheel -- +Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer -- + Down the valley with our guttering brakes asqueal: +Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow, + Where the many-shedded levels loop and twine, +So I lead my reckless children from below + Till we sing the Song of Roland to the pine. + With my "~Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!~" + [And the axe has cleared the mountain, croup and crest!] + So we ride the iron stallions down to drink, + Through the ca]~nons to the waters of the West! + +And the tunes that mean so much to you alone -- + Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose, +Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings the groan -- + I can rip your very heartstrings out with those; +With the feasting, and the folly, and the fun -- + And the lying, and the lusting, and the drink, +And the merry play that drops you, when you're done, + To the thoughts that burn like irons if you think. + With my "~Plunka-lunka-lunka-lunka-lunk!~" + Here's a trifle on account of pleasure past, + Ere the wit that made you win gives you eyes to see your sin + And the heavier repentance at the last! + +Let the organ moan her sorrow to the roof -- + I have told the naked stars the Grief of Man! +Let the trumpets snare the foeman to the proof -- + I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran! +My bray ye may not alter nor mistake + When I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of Things, +But the Song of Lost Endeavour that I make, + Is it hidden in the twanging of the strings? + With my "~Ta-ra-rara-rara-ra-ra-rrrp!~" + [Is it naught to you that hear and pass me by?] + But the word -- the word is mine, when the order moves the line + And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die. + +Of the driven dust of speech I make a flame + And a scourge of broken withes that men let fall: +For the words that had no honour till I came -- + Lo! I raise them into honour over all! +By the wisdom of the centuries I speak -- + To the tune of yestermorn I set the truth -- +I, the joy of life unquestioned -- I, the Greek -- + I, the everlasting Wonder Song of Youth! + With my "~Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!~" + [What d'ye lack, my noble masters? What d'ye lack?] + So I draw the world together link by link: + Yea, from Delos up to Limerick and back! + + + + +THE LINER SHE'S A LADY + + + +The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds -- +The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs; +But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun', +They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down! + + Plyin' up an' down, Jenny, 'angin' round the Yard, + All the way by Fratton tram down to Portsmouth 'Ard; + Anythin' for business, an' we're growin' old -- + Plyin' up an' down, Jenny, waitin' in the cold! + +The Liner she's a lady by the paint upon 'er face, +An' if she meets an accident they count it sore disgrace: +The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, and 'e's always 'andy by, +But, oh, the little cargo-boats! they've got to load or die. + +The Liner she's a lady, and 'er route is cut an' dried; +The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e always keeps beside; +But, oh, the little cargo-boats that 'aven't any man, +They've got to do their business first, and make the most they can! + +The Liner she's a lady, and if a war should come, +The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, and 'e'd bid 'er stay at home; +But, oh, the little cargo-boats that fill with every tide! +'E'd 'ave to up an' fight for them, for they are England's pride. + +The Liner she's a lady, but if she wasn't made, +There still would be the cargo-boats for 'ome an' foreign trade. +The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, but if we wasn't 'ere, +'E wouldn't have to fight at all for 'ome an' friends so dear. + + 'Ome an' friends so dear, Jenny, 'angin' round the Yard, + All the way by Fratton tram down to Portsmouth 'Ard; + Anythin' for business, an' we're growin' old -- + 'Ome an' friends so dear, Jenny, waitin' in the cold! + + + + +MULHOLLAND'S CONTRACT + + + +The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea, +An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free -- +An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one near but me. + +I had been singin' to them to keep 'em quiet there, +For the lower deck is the dangerousest, requirin' constant care, +An' give to me as the strongest man, though used to drink and swear. + +I see my chance was certain of bein' horned or trod, +For the lower deck was packed with steers thicker'n peas in a pod, +An' more pens broke at every roll -- so I made a Contract with God. + +An' by the terms of the Contract, as I have read the same, +If He got me to port alive I would exalt His Name, +An' praise His Holy Majesty till further orders came. + +He saved me from the cattle an' He saved me from the sea, +For they found me 'tween two drownded ones where the roll had landed me -- +An' a four-inch crack on top of my head, as crazy as could be. + +But that were done by a stanchion, an' not by a bullock at all, +An' I lay still for seven weeks convalessing of the fall, +An' readin' the shiny Scripture texts in the Seaman's Hospital. + +An' I spoke to God of our Contract, an' He says to my prayer: +"I never puts on My ministers no more than they can bear. +So back you go to the cattle-boats an' preach My Gospel there. + +"For human life is chancy at any kind of trade, +But most of all, as well you know, when the steers are mad-afraid; +So you go back to the cattle-boats an' preach 'em as I've said. + +"They must quit drinkin' an' swearin', they mustn't knife on a blow, +They must quit gamblin' their wages, and you must preach it so; +For now those boats are more like Hell than anything else I know." + +I didn't want to do it, for I knew what I should get, +An' I wanted to preach Religion, handsome an' out of the wet, +But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, an' I done what I was set. + +I have been smit an' bruis]\ed, as warned would be the case, +An' turned my cheek to the smiter exactly as Scripture says; +But following that, I knocked him down an' led him up to Grace. + +An' we have preaching on Sundays whenever the sea is calm, +An' I use no knife or pistol an' I never take no harm, +For the Lord abideth back of me to guide my fighting arm. + +An' I sign for four-pound-ten a month and save the money clear, +An' I am in charge of the lower deck, an' I never lose a steer; +An' I believe in Almighty God an' preach His Gospel here. + +The skippers say I'm crazy, but I can prove 'em wrong, +For I am in charge of the lower deck with all that doth belong -- +~Which they would not give to a lunatic, and the competition so strong!~ + + + + +ANCHOR SONG + + + +Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again! + Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl. +Loose all sail, and brace your yards back and full -- + Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all! + Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love -- + Down, set down your liquor and your girl from off your knee; + For the wind has come to say: + "You must take me while you may, + If you'd go to Mother Carey + (Walk her down to Mother Carey!), + Oh, we're bound to Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!" + +Heh! Walk her round. Break, ah break it out o' that! + Break our starboard-bower out, apeak, awash, and clear. +Port -- port she casts, with the harbour-mud beneath her foot, + And that's the last o' bottom we shall see this year! + Well, ah fare you well, for we've got to take her out again -- + Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free. + And it's time to clear and quit + When the hawser grips the bitt, + So we'll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from the sea! + +Heh! Tally on. Aft and walk away with her! + Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall! +Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy. + Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul! + Well, ah fare you well, for the Channel wind's took hold of us, + Choking down our voices as we snatch the gaskets free. + And it's blowing up for night, + And she's dropping Light on Light, + And she's snorting under bonnets for a breath of open sea, + +Wheel, full and by; but she'll smell her road alone to-night. + Sick she is and harbour-sick -- O sick to clear the land! +Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign over us -- + Carry on and thrash her out with all she'll stand! + Well, ah fare you well, and it's Ushant slams the door on us, + Whirling like a windmill through the dirty scud to lee: + Till the last, last flicker goes + From the tumbling water-rows, + And we're off to Mother Carey + (Walk her down to Mother Carey!), + Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea! + + + + +THE LOST LEGION + + + +There's a Legion that never was 'listed, + That carries no colours or crest, +But, split in a thousand detachments, + Is breaking the road for the rest. +Our fathers they left us their blessing -- + They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed; +But we've shaken the Clubs and the Messes + To go and find out and be damned + (Dear boys!), + To go and get shot and be damned. + +So some of us chivy the slaver, + And some of us cherish the black, +And some of us hunt on the Oil Coast, + And some on -- the Wallaby track: +And some of us drift to Sarawak, + And some of us drift up The Fly, +And some share our tucker with tigers, + And some with the gentle Masai + (Dear boys!), + Take tea with the giddy Masai. + +We've painted The Islands vermilion, + We've pearled on half-shares in the Bay, +We've shouted on seven-ounce nuggets, + We've starved on a Seedeeboy's pay; +We've laughed at the world as we found it -- + Its women and cities and men -- +From Sayyid Burgash in a tantrum + To the smoke-reddened eyes of Loben + (Dear boys!), + We've a little account with Loben. + +The ends o' the Earth were our portion, + The ocean at large was our share. +There was never a skirmish to windward + But the Leaderless Legion was there: +Yes, somehow and somewhere and always + We were first when the trouble began, +From a lottery-row in Manila, + To an I.D.B. race on the Pan + (Dear boys!), + With the Mounted Police on the Pan. + +We preach in advance of the Army, + We skirmish ahead of the Church, +With never a gunboat to help us + When we're scuppered and left in the lurch. +But we know as the cartridges finish, + And we're filed on our last little shelves, +That the Legion that never was 'listed + Will send us as good as ourselves + (Good men!), + Five hundred as good as ourselves. + +Then a health (we must drink it in whispers) + To our wholly unauthorised horde -- +To the line of our dusty foreloopers, + The Gentlemen Rovers abroad -- +Yes, a health to ourselves ere we scatter, + For the steamer won't wait for the train, +And the Legion that never was 'listed + Goes back into quarters again! + 'Regards! + Goes back under canvas again. + Hurrah! + The swag and the billy again. + Here's how! + The trail and the packhorse again. + Salue! + The trek and the laager again. + + + + +THE SEA-WIFE + + + +There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate, + And a wealthy wife is she; +She breeds a breed o' rovin' men + And casts them over sea. + +And some are drowned in deep water, + And some in sight o' shore, +And word goes back to the weary wife + And ever she sends more. + +For since that wife had gate or gear, + Or hearth or garth or bield, +She willed her sons to the white harvest, + And that is a bitter yield. + +She wills her sons to the wet ploughing, + To ride the horse of tree, +And syne her sons come back again + Far-spent from out the sea. + +The good wife's sons come home again + With little into their hands, +But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men + In the new and naked lands; + +But the faith of men that ha' brothered men + By more than easy breath, +And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men + In the open books of death. + +Rich are they, rich in wonders seen, + But poor in the goods o' men; +So what they ha' got by the skin o' their teeth + They sell for their teeth again. + +For whether they lose to the naked life + Or win to their hearts' desire, +They tell it all to the weary wife + That nods beside the fire. + +Her hearth is wide to every wind + That makes the white ash spin; +And tide and tide and 'tween the tides + Her sons go out and in; + +(Out with great mirth that do desire + Hazard of trackless ways, +In with content to wait their watch + And warm before the blaze); + +And some return by failing light, + And some in waking dream, +For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts + That ride the rough roof-beam. + +Home, they come home from all the ports, + The living and the dead; +The good wife's sons come home again + For her blessing on their head! + + + + +HYMN BEFORE ACTION + + + +The earth is full of anger, + The seas are dark with wrath, +The Nations in their harness + Go up against our path: +Ere yet we loose the legions -- + Ere yet we draw the blade, +Jehovah of the Thunders, + Lord God of Battles, aid! + +High lust and froward bearing, + Proud heart, rebellious brow -- +Deaf ear and soul uncaring, + We seek Thy mercy now! +The sinner that forswore Thee, + The fool that passed Thee by, +Our times are known before Thee -- + Lord, grant us strength to die! + +For those who kneel beside us + At altars not Thine own, +Who lack the lights that guide us, + Lord, let their faith atone. +If wrong we did to call them, + By honour bound they came; +Let not Thy Wrath befall them, + But deal to us the blame. + +From panic, pride, and terror, + Revenge that knows no rein, +Light haste and lawless error, + Protect us yet again. +Cloak Thou our undeserving, + Make firm the shuddering breath, +In silence and unswerving + To taste Thy lesser death! + +Ah, Mary pierced with sorrow, + Remember, reach and save +The soul that comes to-morrow + Before the God that gave! +Since each was born of woman, + For each at utter need -- +True comrade and true foeman -- + Madonna, intercede! + +E'en now their vanguard gathers, + E'en now we face the fray -- +As Thou didst help our fathers, + Help Thou our host to-day! +Fulfilled of signs and wonders, + In life, in death made clear -- +Jehovah of the Thunders, + Lord God of Battles, hear! + + + + +TO THE TRUE ROMANCE + + + + Thy face is far from this our war, + Our call and counter-cry, + I shall not find Thee quick and kind, + Nor know Thee till I die, + Enough for me in dreams to see + And touch Thy garments' hem: + Thy feet have trod so near to God + I may not follow them. + +Through wantonness if men profess + They weary of Thy parts, +E'en let them die at blasphemy + And perish with their arts; +But we that love, but we that prove + Thine excellence august, +While we adore discover more + Thee perfect, wise, and just. + +Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred + Beyond his belly-need, +What is is Thine of fair design + In thought and craft and deed; +Each stroke aright of toil and fight, + That was and that shall be, +And hope too high, wherefore we die, + Has birth and worth in Thee. + +Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee + To gild his dross thereby, +And knowledge sure that he endure + A child until he die -- +For to make plain that man's disdain + Is but new Beauty's birth -- +For to possess in loneliness + The joy of all the earth. + +As Thou didst teach all lovers speech + And Life all mystery, +So shalt Thou rule by every school + Till love and longing die, +Who wast or yet the Lights were set, + A whisper in the Void, +Who shalt be sung through planets young + When this is clean destroyed. + +Beyond the bounds our staring rounds, + Across the pressing dark, +The children wise of outer skies + Look hitherward and mark +A light that shifts, a glare that drifts, + Rekindling thus and thus, +Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne + Strange tales to them of us. + +Time hath no tide but must abide + The servant of Thy will; +Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme + The ranging stars stand still -- +Regent of spheres that lock our fears, + Our hopes invisible, +Oh 'twas certes at Thy decrees + We fashioned Heaven and Hell! + +Pure Wisdom hath no certain path + That lacks thy morning-eyne, +And captains bold by Thee controlled + Most like to Gods design; +Thou art the Voice to kingly boys + To lift them through the fight, +And Comfortress of Unsuccess, + To give the dead good-night -- + +A veil to draw 'twixt God His Law + And Man's infirmity, +A shadow kind to dumb and blind + The shambles where we die; +A rule to trick th' arithmetic + Too base of leaguing odds -- +The spur of trust, the curb of lust, + Thou handmaid of the Gods! + +O Charity, all patiently + Abiding wrack and scaith! +O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats + Yet drops no jot of faith! +Devil and brute Thou dost transmute + To higher, lordlier show, +Who art in sooth that lovely Truth + The careless angels know! + + Thy face is far from this our war, + Our call and counter-cry, + I may not find Thee quick and kind, + Nor know Thee till I die. + + Yet may I look with heart unshook + On blow brought home or missed -- + Yet may I hear with equal ear + The clarions down the List; + Yet set my lance above mischance + And ride the barriere -- + Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis, + My Lady is not there! + + + + +THE FLOWERS + + To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic, + almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress, + are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us + like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote; + the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose, + nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April + as the English thrush. -- THE ATHEN]AEUM. + + + + Buy my English posies! + Kent and Surrey may -- + Violets of the Undercliff + Wet with Channel spray; + Cowslips from a Devon combe -- + Midland furze afire -- + Buy my English posies + And I'll sell your heart's desire! + + Buy my English posies! + You that scorn the May, + Won't you greet a friend from home + Half the world away? + Green against the draggled drift, + Faint and frail and first -- + Buy my Northern blood-root + And I'll know where you were nursed: +Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!" +Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free; +All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain. +Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! + + Buy my English posies! + Here's to match your need -- + Buy a tuft of royal heath, + Buy a bunch of weed + White as sand of Muysenberg + Spun before the gale -- + Buy my heath and lilies + And I'll tell you whence you hail! +Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie -- +Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky -- +Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain -- +Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! + + Buy my English posies! + You that will not turn -- + Buy my hot-wood clematis, + Buy a frond o' fern + Gathered where the Erskine leaps + Down the road to Lorne -- + Buy my Christmas creeper + And I'll say where you were born! +West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin -- +They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn -- +Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main -- +Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! + + Buy my English posies! + Here's your choice unsold! + Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom, + Buy the kowhai's gold + Flung for gift on Taupo's face, + Sign that spring is come -- + Buy my clinging myrtle + And I'll give you back your home! +Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine -- +Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ~ratas~ twine -- +Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain -- +Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! + + Buy my English posies! + Ye that have your own + Buy them for a brother's sake + Overseas, alone. + Weed ye trample underfoot + Floods his heart abrim -- + Bird ye never heeded, + Oh, she calls his dead to him! +Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas; +Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these! +Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land -- +Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand. + + + + +THE LAST RHYME OF TRUE THOMAS + + + +The King has called for priest and cup, + The King has taken spur and blade +To dub True Thomas a belted knight, + And all for the sake o' the songs he made. + +They have sought him high, they have sought him low, + They have sought him over down and lea; +They have found him by the milk-white thorn + That guards the gates o' Faerie. + + 'Twas bent beneath and blue above, + Their eyes were held that they might not see + The kine that grazed beneath the knowes, + Oh, they were the Queens o' Faerie! + +"Now cease your song," the King he said, + "Oh, cease your song and get you dight +To vow your vow and watch your arms, + For I will dub you a belted knight. + +"For I will give you a horse o' pride, + Wi' blazon and spur and page and squire; +Wi' keep and tail and seizin and law, + And land to hold at your desire." + +True Thomas smiled above his harp, + And turned his face to the naked sky, +Where, blown before the wastrel wind, + The thistle-down she floated by. + +"I ha' vowed my vow in another place, + And bitter oath it was on me, +I ha' watched my arms the lee-long night, + Where five-score fighting men would flee. + +"My lance is tipped o' the hammered flame, + My shield is beat o' the moonlight cold; +And I won my spurs in the Middle World, + A thousand fathom beneath the mould. + +"And what should I make wi' a horse o' pride, + And what should I make wi' a sword so brown, +But spill the rings o' the Gentle Folk + And flyte my kin in the Fairy Town? + +"And what should I make wi' blazon and belt, + Wi' keep and tail and seizin and fee, +And what should I do wi' page and squire + That am a king in my own countrie? + +"For I send east and I send west, + And I send far as my will may flee, +By dawn and dusk and the drinking rain, + And syne my Sendings return to me. + +"They come wi' news of the groanin' earth, + They come wi' news o' the roarin' sea, +Wi' word of Spirit and Ghost and Flesh, + And man, that's mazed among the three." + +The King he bit his nether lip, + And smote his hand upon his knee: +"By the faith o' my soul, True Thomas," he said, + "Ye waste no wit in courtesie! + +"As I desire, unto my pride, + Can I make Earls by three and three, +To run before and ride behind + And serve the sons o' my body." + +"And what care I for your row-foot earls, + Or all the sons o' your body? +Before they win to the Pride o' Name, + I trow they all ask leave o' me. + +"For I make Honour wi' muckle mouth, + As I make Shame wi' mincin' feet, +To sing wi' the priests at the market-cross, + Or run wi' the dogs in the naked street. + +"And some they give me the good red gold, + And some they give me the white money, +And some they give me a clout o' meal, + For they be people o' low degree. + +"And the song I sing for the counted gold + The same I sing for the white money, +But best I sing for the clout o' meal + That simple people given me." + +The King cast down a silver groat, + A silver groat o' Scots money, +"If I come wi' a poor man's dole," he said, + "True Thomas, will ye harp to me?" + +"Whenas I harp to the children small, + They press me close on either hand. +And who are you," True Thomas said, + "That you should ride while they must stand? + +"Light down, light down from your horse o' pride, + I trow ye talk too loud and hie, +And I will make you a triple word, + And syne, if ye dare, ye shall 'noble me." + +He has lighted down from his horse o' pride, + And set his back against the stone. +"Now guard you well," True Thomas said, + "Ere I rax your heart from your breast-bone!" + +True Thomas played upon his harp, + The fairy harp that couldna lee, +And the first least word the proud King heard, + It harpit the salt tear out o' his ee. + +"Oh, I see the love that I lost long syne, + I touch the hope that I may not see, +And all that I did o' hidden shame, + Like little snakes they hiss at me. + +"The sun is lost at noon -- at noon! + The dread o' doom has grippit me. +True Thomas, hide me under your cloak, + God wot, I'm little fit to dee!" + + 'Twas bent beneath and blue above -- + 'Twas open field and running flood -- + Where, hot on heath and dike and wall, + The high sun warmed the adder's brood. + +"Lie down, lie down," True Thomas said. + "The God shall judge when all is done. +But I will bring you a better word + And lift the cloud that I laid on." + +True Thomas played upon his harp, + That birled and brattled to his hand, +And the next least word True Thomas made, + It garred the King take horse and brand. + +"Oh, I hear the tread o' the fighting men, + I see the sun on splent and spear. +I mark the arrow outen the fern + That flies so low and sings so clear! + +"Advance my standards to that war, + And bid my good knights prick and ride; +The gled shall watch as fierce a fight + As e'er was fought on the Border side!" + + 'Twas bent beneath and blue above, + 'Twas nodding grass and naked sky, + Where, ringing up the wastrel wind, + The eyas stooped upon the pie. + +True Thomas sighed above his harp, + And turned the song on the midmost string; +And the last least word True Thomas made, + He harpit his dead youth back to the King. + +"Now I am prince, and I do well + To love my love withouten fear; +To walk wi' man in fellowship, + And breathe my horse behind the deer. + +"My hounds they bay unto the death, + The buck has couched beyond the burn, +My love she waits at her window + To wash my hands when I return. + +"For that I live am I content + (Oh! I have seen my true love's eyes) +To stand wi' Adam in Eden-glade, + And run in the woods o' Paradise!" + + 'Twas naked sky and nodding grass, + 'Twas running flood and wastrel wind, + Where, checked against the open pass, + The red deer belled to call the hind. + +True Thomas laid his harp away, + And louted low at the saddle-side; +He has taken stirrup and hauden rein, + And set the King on his horse o' pride. + +"Sleep ye or wake," True Thomas said, + "That sit so still, that muse so long; +Sleep ye or wake? -- till the latter sleep + I trow ye'll not forget my song. + +"I ha' harpit a shadow out o' the sun + To stand before your face and cry; +I ha' armed the earth beneath your heel, + And over your head I ha' dusked the sky. + +"I ha' harpit ye up to the throne o' God, + I ha' harpit your midmost soul in three; +I ha' harpit ye down to the Hinges o' Hell, + And -- ye -- would -- make -- a Knight o' me!" + + + + +IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE + + + +In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage + For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt; +I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man, + And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt. + +Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring + Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove; +And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg + Were about me and beneath me and above. + +But a rival, of Solutr]/e, told the tribe my style was ~outr]/e~ -- + 'Neath a tomahawk of diorite he fell. +And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart + Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle. + +Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full, + And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong; +And I wiped my mouth and said, "It is well that they are dead, + For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong." + +But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came, + And he told me in a vision of the night: -- +"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, + And every single one of them is right!" + + . . . . . + +Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me + Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail; +And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer + [And a minor poet certified by Tr--ll]. + +Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow, + When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn; +When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses, + And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne. + +Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage, + Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk; +Still we let our business slide -- as we dropped the half-dressed hide -- + To show a fellow-savage how to work. + +Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to marge, -- + And it holds a vast of various kinds of man; +And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu, + And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban. + +Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose + And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: -- +There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, + And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right! + + + + +THE STORY OF UNG + + + +Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago, +Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow. +Fashioned the form of a tribesman -- gaily he whistled and sung, +Working the snow with his fingers. ~Read ye the Story of Ung!~ + +Pleased was his tribe with that image -- came in their hundreds to scan -- +Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: "Verily, this is a man! +Thus do we carry our lances -- thus is a war-belt slung. +Lo! it is even as we are. Glory and honour to Ung!" + +Later he pictured an aurochs -- later he pictured a bear -- +Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair -- +Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, abhorrent, alone -- +Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them clearly on bone. + +Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and pushing and still -- +Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the boulder-hatched hill -- +Hunters and fishers and trappers, presently whispering low: +"Yea, they are like -- and it may be -- But how does the Picture-man know?" + +"Ung -- hath he slept with the Aurochs -- watched where the Mastodon roam? +Spoke on the ice with the Bow-head -- followed the Sabre-tooth home? +Nay! These are toys of his fancy! If he have cheated us so, +How is there truth in his image -- the man that he fashioned of snow?" + +Wroth was that maker of pictures -- hotly he answered the call: +"Hunters and fishers and trappers, children and fools are ye all! +Look at the beasts when ye hunt them!" Swift from the tumult he broke, +Ran to the cave of his father and told him the shame that they spoke. + +And the father of Ung gave answer, that was old and wise in the craft, +Maker of pictures aforetime, he leaned on his lance and laughed: +"If they could see as thou seest they would do what thou hast done, +And each man would make him a picture, and -- what would become of my son? + +"There would be no pelts of the reindeer, flung down at thy cave for a gift, +Nor dole of the oily timber that comes on the Baltic drift; +No store of well-drilled needles, nor ouches of amber pale; +No new-cut tongues of the bison, nor meat of the stranded whale. + +"~Thou~ hast not toiled at the fishing when the sodden trammels freeze, +Nor worked the war-boats outward through the rush of the rock-staked seas, +Yet they bring thee fish and plunder -- full meal and an easy bed -- +And all for the sake of thy pictures." And Ung held down his head. + +"~Thou~ hast not stood to the Aurochs when the red snow reeks of the fight; +Men have no time at the houghing to count his curls aright. +And the heart of the hairy Mammoth, thou sayest, they do not see, +Yet they save it whole from the beaches and broil the best for thee. + +"And now do they press to thy pictures, with opened mouth and eye, +And a little gift in the doorway, and the praise no gift can buy: +But -- sure they have doubted thy pictures, and that is a grievous stain -- +Son that can see so clearly, return them their gifts again!" + +And Ung looked down at his deerskins -- their broad shell-tasselled bands -- +And Ung drew downward his mitten and looked at his naked hands; +And he gloved himself and departed, and he heard his father, behind: +"Son that can see so clearly, rejoice that thy tribe is blind!" + +Straight on the glittering ice-field, by the caves of the lost Dordogne, +Ung, a maker of pictures, fell to his scribing on bone +Even to mammoth editions. Gaily he whistled and sung, +Blessing his tribe for their blindness. ~Heed ye the Story of Ung!~ + + + + +THE THREE-DECKER + +"~The three-volume novel is extinct.~" + + + +Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail. +It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; +But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best -- +The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest. + +Fair held the breeze behind us -- 'twas warm with lovers' prayers. +We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs. +They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed, +And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest. + +By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook, +Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took +With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, +And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest. + +We asked no social questions -- we pumped no hidden shame -- +We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came: +We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell. +We weren't exactly Yussufs, but -- Zuleika didn't tell. + +No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared, +The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. +'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le -- 'twas garlands on the mast, +For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. + +I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks. +I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques. +In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed, +I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! + +That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift again +Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain. +They're just beyond your skyline, howe'er so far you cruise +In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws. + +Swing round your aching search-light -- 'twill show no haven's peace. +Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas! +Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's unrest -- +And you aren't one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest! + +But when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, +At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, +Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, +You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest. + +You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; +You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head; +While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine +Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine! + +Hull down -- hull down and under -- she dwindles to a speck, +With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck. +All's well -- all's well aboard her -- she's left you far behind, +With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind. + +Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make? +You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake? +Well, tinker up your engines -- you know your business best -- +~She~'s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest! + + + + +AN AMERICAN + + + +The American Spirit speaks: + + +"If the Led Striker call it a strike, + Or the papers call it a war, +They know not much what I am like, + Nor what he is, my Avatar." + +Through many roads, by me possessed, + He shambles forth in cosmic guise; +He is the Jester and the Jest, + And he the Text himself applies. + +The Celt is in his heart and hand, + The Gaul is in his brain and nerve; +Where, cosmopolitanly planned, + He guards the Redskin's dry reserve. + +His easy unswept hearth he lends + From Labrador to Guadeloupe; +Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, + He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop. + +Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown, + Or panic-blinded stabs and slays: +Blatant he bids the world bow down, + Or cringing begs a crust of praise; + +Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, + He dubs his dreary brethren Kings. +His hands are black with blood -- his heart + Leaps, as a babe's, at little things. + +But, through the shift of mood and mood, + Mine ancient humour saves him whole -- +The cynic devil in his blood + That bids him mock his hurrying soul; + +That bids him flout the Law he makes, + That bids him make the Law he flouts, +Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes + The drumming guns that -- have no doubts; + +That checks him foolish -- hot and fond, + That chuckles through his deepest ire, +That gilds the slough of his despond + But dims the goal of his desire; + +Inopportune, shrill-accented, + The acrid Asiatic mirth +That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead, + The scandal of the elder earth. + +How shall he clear himself, how reach + Your bar or weighed defence prefer? +A brother hedged with alien speech + And lacking all interpreter. + +Which knowledge vexes him a space; + But while Reproof around him rings, +He turns a keen untroubled face + Home, to the instant need of things. + +Enslaved, illogical, elate, + He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fears +To shake the iron hand of Fate + Or match with Destiny for beers. + +Lo, imperturbable he rules, + Unkempt, disreputable, vast -- +And, in the teeth of all the schools, + I -- I shall save him at the last! + + + + +THE "MARY GLOSTER" + + + +I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim -- +Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him! +Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied. +I shall go under by morning, and -- Put that nurse outside. +'Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn, +And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn. +Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too, +I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned if I made you. +Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three -- +Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea! +Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it fight, +And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite: +For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness -- what was it the papers a-had? +"Not least of our merchant-princes." Dickie, that's me, your dad! +~I~ didn't begin with askings. ~I~ took my job and I stuck; +And I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck. +Lord, what boats I've handled -- rotten and leaky and old! +Ran 'em, or -- opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told. +Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud turn you grey, +And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way. +The others they dursn't do it; they said they valued their life +(They've served me since as skippers). ~I~ went, and I took my wife. +Over the world I drove 'em, married at twenty-three, +And your mother saving the money and making a man of me. +~I~ was content to be master, but she said there was better behind; +She took the chances I wouldn't, and I followed your mother blind. +She egged me to borrow the money, an' she helped me to clear the loan, +When we bought half shares in a cheap 'un and hoisted a flag of our own. +Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how, +We started the Red Ox freighters -- we've eight-and-thirty now. +And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were clipper-freights, +And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died in Macassar Straits -- +By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank -- +And we dropped her in fourteen fathom; I pricked it off where she sank. +Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was christened for her, +And she died in the ~Mary Gloster~. My heart, how young we were! +So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran her ashore, +But your mother came and warned me and I wouldn't liquor no more: +Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I'd think, +Saving the money (she warned me), and letting the other men drink. +And I met M'Cullough in London (I'd turned five 'undred then), +And 'tween us we started the Foundry -- three forges and twenty men: +Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. It paid, and the business grew, +For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that was a gold mine too. +"Cheaper to build 'em than buy 'em," ~I~ said, but M'Cullough he shied, +And we wasted a year in talking before we moved to the Clyde. +And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of us started fair, +Building our engines like houses and staying the boilers square. +But M'Cullough 'e wanted cabins with marble and maple and all, +And Brussels an' Utrecht velvet, and baths and a Social Hall, +And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the frames too light, +But M'Cullough he died in the Sixties, and -- Well, I'm dying to-night. . . . +I knew -- ~I~ knew what was coming, when we bid on the ~Byfleet~'s keel -- +They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel! +Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid, +When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade! +And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text, +"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!" +They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind, +And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind. +Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side; +He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died. +I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print; +And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a hint. +(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what the drawings meant, +And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me sixty per cent -- +Sixty per cent ~with~ failures, and more than twice we could do, +And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all for you! +I thought -- it doesn't matter -- you seemed to favour your ma, +But you're nearer forty than thirty, and I know the kind you are. +Harrer an' Trinity College! I ought to ha' sent you to sea -- +But I stood you an education, an' what have you done for me? +The things I knew was proper you wouldn't thank me to give, +And the things I knew was rotten you said was the way to live. +For you muddled with books and pictures, an' china an' etchin's an' fans, +And your rooms at college was beastly -- more like a whore's than a man's -- +Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone, +An' she gave you your social nonsense; but where's that kid o' your own? +I've seen your carriages blocking the half o' the Cromwell Road, +But never the doctor's brougham to help the missus unload. +(So there isn't even a grandchild, an' the Gloster family's done.) +Not like your mother, she isn't. ~She~ carried her freight each run. +But they died, the pore little beggars! At sea she had 'em -- they died. +Only you, an' you stood it; you haven't stood much beside. +Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier's whelp +Nosing for scraps in the galley. No help -- my son was no help! +So he gets three 'undred thousand, in trust and the interest paid. +I wouldn't give it you, Dickie -- you see, I made it in trade. +You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no child, +It all comes back to the business. Gad, won't your wife be wild! +'Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up to 'er eye: +"Daddy! dear daddy's dyin'!" and doing her best to cry. +Grateful? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep her away from here. +Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, women are queer. . . . +There's women will say I've married a second time. +Not quite! But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers'll fight. +She was the best o' the boiling -- you'll meet her before it ends; +I'm in for a row with the mother -- I'll leave you settle my friends: +For a man he must go with a woman, which women don't understand -- +Or the sort that say they can see it they aren't the marrying brand. +But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still -- +I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurting the will. +Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you, +If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do. +They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can; +And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?) +There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough tried -- +Marbles and mausoleums -- but I call that sinful pride. +There's some ship bodies for burial -- we've carried 'em, soldered and packed; +Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody called ~them~ cracked. +But me -- I've too much money, and people might. . . . All my fault: +It come o' hoping for grandsons and buying that Wokin' vault. +I'm sick o' the 'ole dam' business; I'm going back where I came. +Dick, you're the son o' my body, and you'll take charge o' the same! +I want to lie by your mother, ten thousand mile away, +And they'll want to send me to Woking; and that's where you'll earn your pay. +I've thought it out on the quiet, the same as it ought to be done -- +Quiet, and decent, and proper -- an' here's your orders, my son. +You know the Line? You don't, though. You write to the Board, and tell +Your father's death has upset you an' you're goin' to cruise for a spell, +An' you'd like the ~Mary Gloster~ -- I've held her ready for this -- +They'll put her in working order and you'll take her out as she is. +Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and put her aside +(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies!) -- the boat where your mother died, +By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank, +We dropped her -- I think I told you -- and I pricked it off where she sank -- +['Tiny she looked on the grating -- that oily, treacly sea --] +'Hundred and eighteen East, remember, and South just three. +Easy bearings to carry -- three South -- three to the dot; +But I gave M'Andrew a copy in case of dying -- or not. +And so you'll write to M'Andrew, he's Chief of the Maori Line; +They'll give him leave, if you ask 'em and say it's business o' mine. +I built three boats for the Maoris, an' very well pleased they were, +An' I've known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew me -- and her. +After the first stroke warned me I sent him the money to keep +Against the time you'd claim it, committin' your dad to the deep; +For you are the son o' my body, and Mac was my oldest friend, +I've never asked 'im to dinner, but he'll see it out to the end. +Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar, I've heard he's prayed for my soul, +But he couldn't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve before he stole! +He'll take the ~Mary~ in ballast -- you'll find her a lively ship; +And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on 'is wedding-trip, +Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three port-holes wide, +The kick o' the screw beneath him and the round blue seas outside! +Sir Anthony Gloster's carriage -- our 'ouse-flag flyin' free -- +Ten thousand men on the pay-roll and forty freighters at sea! +He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleetin' show, +And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom the same as he ought to go -- +By the heel of the Paternosters -- there isn't a chance to mistake -- +And Mac'll pay you the money as soon as the bubbles break! +Five thousand for six weeks' cruising, the staunchest freighter afloat, +And Mac he'll give you your bonus the minute I'm out o' the boat! +He'll take you round to Macassar, and you'll come back alone; +He knows what I want o' the ~Mary~. . . . I'll do what I please with my own. +Your mother 'ud call it wasteful, but I've seven-and-thirty more; +I'll come in my private carriage and bid it wait at the door. . . . +For my son 'e was never a credit: 'e muddled with books and art, +And 'e lived on Sir Anthony's money and 'e broke Sir Anthony's heart. +There isn't even a grandchild, and the Gloster family's done -- +The only one you left me, O mother, the only one! +Harrer and Trinity College -- me slavin' early an' late -- +An' he thinks I'm dying crazy, and you're in Macassar Strait! +Flesh o' my flesh, my dearie, for ever an' ever amen, +That first stroke come for a warning; I ought to ha' gone to you then, +But -- cheap repairs for a cheap 'un -- the doctors said I'd do: +Mary, why didn't ~you~ warn me? I've allus heeded to you, +Excep' -- I know -- about women; but you are a spirit now; +An', wife, they was only women, and I was a man. That's how. +An' a man 'e must go with a woman, as you could not understand; +But I never talked 'em secrets. I paid 'em out o' hand. +Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies! Now what's five thousand to me, +For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven where I would be? +~I~ believe in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible plain, +But I wouldn't trust 'em at Wokin'; we're safer at sea again. +For the heart it shall go with the treasure -- go down to the sea in ships. +I'm sick of the hired women -- I'll kiss my girl on her lips! +I'll be content with my fountain, I'll drink from my own well, +And the wife of my youth shall charm me -- an' the rest can go to Hell! +(Dickie, ~he~ will, that's certain.) I'll lie in our standin'-bed, +An' Mac'll take her in ballast -- an' she trims best by the head. . . . +Down by the head an' sinkin', her fires are drawn and cold, +And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of the empty hold -- +Churning an' choking and chuckling, quiet and scummy and dark -- +Full to her lower hatches and risin' steady. Hark! +That was the after-bulkhead. . . . She's flooded from stem to stern. . . . +Never seen death yet, Dickie? . . . Well, now is your time to learn! + + + + + + +SESTINA OF THE TRAMP-ROYAL + + + +Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all, +The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world. +Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good +For such as cannot use one bed too long, +But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done, +An' go observin' matters till they die. + +What do it matter where or 'ow we die, +So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all -- +The different ways that different things are done, +An' men an' women lovin' in this world -- +Takin' our chances as they come along, +An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good? + +In cash or credit -- no, it aren't no good; +You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die, +Unless you lived your life but one day long, +Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, +But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, +An' never bothered what you might ha' done. + +But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done? +I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good, +In various situations round the world -- +For 'im that doth not work must surely die; +But that's no reason man should labour all +'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long. + +Therefore, from job to job I've moved along. +Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done, +For something in my 'ead upset me all, +Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good, +An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die, +An' met my mate -- the wind that tramps the world! + +It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, +Which you can read and care for just so long, +But presently you feel that you will die +Unless you get the page you're readin' done, +An' turn another -- likely not so good; +But what you're after is to turn 'em all. + +Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done -- +Excep' when awful long -- I've found it good. +So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!" + + + + + + +BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS + + + + + + + When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, + He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; + An' what he thought 'e might require, + 'E went an' took -- the same as me! + + The market-girls an' fishermen, + The shepherds an' the sailors, too, + They 'eard old songs turn up again, + But kep' it quiet -- same as you! + + They knew 'e stole; 'e knew they knowed. + They didn't tell, nor make a fuss, + But winked at 'Omer down the road, + An' 'e winked back -- the same as us! + + + + + + +"BACK TO THE ARMY AGAIN" + + + +I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at, +A-layin' on to the sergeant I don't know a gun from a bat; +My shirt's doin' duty for jacket, my sock's stickin' out o' my boots, +An' I'm learnin' the damned old goose-step along o' the new recruits! + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again. + Don't look so 'ard, for I 'aven't no card, + I'm back to the Army again! + +I done my six years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: "Good-day -- +You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back-pay; +An' fourpence a day for baccy -- an' bloomin' gen'rous, too; +An' now you can make your fortune -- the same as your orf'cers do." + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again; + 'Ow did I learn to do right-about turn? + I'm back to the Army again! + +A man o' four-an'-twenty that 'asn't learned of a trade -- +Beside "Reserve" agin' him -- 'e'd better be never made. +I tried my luck for a quarter, an' that was enough for me, +An' I thought of 'Er Majesty's barricks, an' I thought I'd go an' see. + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again; + 'Tisn't my fault if I dress when I 'alt -- + I'm back to the Army again! + +The sergeant arst no questions, but 'e winked the other eye, +'E sez to me, "'Shun!" an' I shunted, the same as in days gone by; +For 'e saw the set o' my shoulders, an' I couldn't 'elp 'oldin' straight +When me an' the other rookies come under the barrick-gate. + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again; + 'Oo would ha' thought I could carry an' port? + I'm back to the Army again! + +I took my bath, an' I wallered -- for, Gawd, I needed it so! +I smelt the smell o' the barricks, I 'eard the bugles go. +I 'eard the feet on the gravel -- the feet o' the men what drill -- +An' I sez to my flutterin' 'eart-strings, I sez to 'em, "Peace, be still!" + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again; + 'Oo said I knew when the ~Jumner~ was due? + I'm back to the Army again! + +I carried my slops to the tailor; I sez to 'im, "None o' your lip! +You tight 'em over the shoulders, an' loose 'em over the 'ip, +For the set o' the tunic's 'orrid." An' 'e sez to me, "Strike me dead, +But I thought you was used to the business!" an' so 'e done what I said. + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again. + Rather too free with my fancies? Wot -- me? + I'm back to the Army again! + +Next week I'll 'ave 'em fitted; I'll buy me a swagger-cane; +They'll let me free o' the barricks to walk on the Hoe again +In the name o' William Parsons, that used to be Edward Clay, +An' -- any pore beggar that wants it can draw my fourpence a day! + + Back to the Army again, sergeant, + Back to the Army again: + Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant, + Out o' the cold an' the rain. + + 'Oo's there? +A man that's too good to be lost you, + A man that is 'andled an' made -- +A man that will pay what 'e cost you + In learnin' the others their trade -- parade! +You're droppin' the pick o' the Army + Because you don't 'elp 'em remain, +But drives 'em to cheat to get out o' the street + An' back to the Army again! + + + + +"BIRDS OF PREY" MARCH + + + +March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies. + Front! -- eyes front, an' watch the Colour-casin's drip. +Front! The faces of the women in the 'ouses + Ain't the kind o' things to take aboard the ship. + + Cheer! An' we'll never march to victory. + Cheer! An' we'll never live to 'ear the cannon roar! + The Large Birds o' Prey + They will carry us away, + An' you'll never see your soldiers any more! + +Wheel! Oh, keep your touch; we're goin' round a corner. + Time! -- mark time, an' let the men be'ind us close. +Lord! the transport's full, an' 'alf our lot not on 'er -- + Cheer, O cheer! We're going off where no one knows. + +March! The Devil's none so black as 'e is painted! + Cheer! We'll 'ave some fun before we're put away. +'Alt, an' 'and 'er out -- a woman's gone and fainted! + Cheer! Get on -- Gawd 'elp the married men to-day! + +Hoi! Come up, you 'ungry beggars, to yer sorrow. + ('Ear them say they want their tea, an' want it quick!) +You won't have no mind for slingers, not to-morrow -- + No; you'll put the 'tween-decks stove out, bein' sick! + +'Alt! The married kit 'as all to go before us! + 'Course it's blocked the bloomin' gangway up again! +Cheer, O cheer the 'Orse Guards watchin' tender o'er us, + Keepin' us since eight this mornin' in the rain! + +Stuck in 'eavy marchin'-order, sopped and wringin' -- + Sick, before our time to watch 'er 'eave an' fall, +'Ere's your 'appy 'ome at last, an' stop your singin'. + 'Alt! Fall in along the troop-deck! Silence all! + + Cheer! For we'll never live to see no bloomin' victory! + Cheer! An' we'll never live to 'ear the cannon roar! (One cheer more!) + The jackal an' the kite + 'Ave an 'ealthy appetite, + An' you'll never see your soldiers any more! ('Ip! Urroar!) + The eagle an' the crow + They are waitin' ever so, + An' you'll never see your soldiers any more! ('Ip! Urroar!) + Yes, the Large Birds o' Prey + They will carry us away, + An' you'll never see your soldiers any more! + + + + +"SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO" + + + +As I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the ~Crocodile~, +I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the Reg'lars' style. +'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates, + an' I sez to 'im, "'Oo are you?" +Sez 'e, "I'm a Jolly -- 'Er Majesty's Jolly -- soldier an' sailor too!" +Now 'is work begins by Gawd knows when, and 'is work is never through; +'E isn't one o' the reg'lar Line, nor 'e isn't one of the crew. +'E's a kind of a giddy harumfrodite -- soldier an' sailor too! + +An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds of things, +Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to them 'eathen kings; +'E sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, + an' 'e drills with the deck on a slew, +An' 'e sweats like a Jolly -- 'Er Majesty's Jolly -- soldier an' sailor too! +For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar don't know, nor do -- +You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead, to paddle 'is own canoe -- +'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse -- soldier an' sailor too. + +We've fought 'em in trooper, we've fought 'em in dock, + and drunk with 'em in betweens, +When they called us the seasick scull'ry-maids, + an' we called 'em the Ass Marines; +But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo, +We sent for the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies -- soldier an' sailor too! +They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'emselves, + and they never ask what's to do, +But they're camped an' fed an' they're up an' fed before our bugle's blew. +Ho! they ain't no limpin' procrastitutes -- soldier an' sailor too. + +You may say we are fond of an 'arness-cut, or 'ootin' in barrick-yards, +Or startin' a Board School mutiny along o' the Onion Guards; +But once in a while we can finish in style for the ends of the earth to view, +The same as the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies -- soldier an' sailor too! +They come of our lot, they was brothers to us; + they was beggars we'd met an' knew; +Yes, barrin' an inch in the chest an' the arm, they was doubles o' me an' you; +For they weren't no special chrysanthemums -- soldier an' sailor too! + +To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about, +Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout; +But to stand an' be still to the ~Birken'ead~ drill + is a damn tough bullet to chew, +An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies -- + soldier an' sailor too! +Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you; +Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps + an' bein' mopped by the screw, +So they stood an' was still to the ~Birken'ead~ drill, soldier an' sailor too! + +We're most of us liars, we're 'arf of us thieves, + an' the rest are as rank as can be, +But once in a while we can finish in style + (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me). +But it makes you think better o' you an' your friends, + an' the work you may 'ave to do, +When you think o' the sinkin' ~Victorier~'s Jollies -- soldier an' sailor too! +Now there isn't no room for to say ye don't know -- + they 'ave proved it plain and true -- +That whether it's Widow, or whether it's ship, Victorier's work is to do, +An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies -- + soldier an' sailor too! + + + + +SAPPERS + + + +When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear, + ("It's all one," says the Sapper), +The Lord He created the Engineer, + Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, + With the rank and pay of a Sapper! + +When the Flood come along for an extra monsoon, +'Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon + To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc. + +But after fatigue in the wet an' the sun, +Old Noah got drunk, which he wouldn't ha' done + If he'd trained with, etc. + +When the Tower o' Babel had mixed up men's ~bat~, +Some clever civilian was managing that, + An' none of, etc. + +When the Jews had a fight at the foot of a hill, +Young Joshua ordered the sun to stand still, + For he was a Captain of Engineers, etc. + +When the Children of Israel made bricks without straw, +They were learnin' the regular work of our Corps, + The work of, etc. + +For ever since then, if a war they would wage, +Behold us a-shinin' on history's page -- + First page for, etc. + +We lay down their sidings an' help 'em entrain, +An' we sweep up their mess through the bloomin' campaign, + In the style of, etc. + +They send us in front with a fuse an' a mine +To blow up the gates that are rushed by the Line, + But bent by, etc. + +They send us behind with a pick an' a spade, +To dig for the guns of a bullock-brigade + Which has asked for, etc. + +We work under escort in trousers and shirt, +An' the heathen they plug us tail-up in the dirt, + Annoying, etc. + +We blast out the rock an' we shovel the mud, +We make 'em good roads an' -- they roll down the ~khud~, + Reporting, etc. + +We make 'em their bridges, their wells, an' their huts, +An' the telegraph-wire the enemy cuts, + An' it's blamed on, etc. + +An' when we return, an' from war we would cease, +They grudge us adornin' the billets of peace, + Which are kept for, etc. + +We build 'em nice barracks -- they swear they are bad, +That our Colonels are Methodist, married or mad, + Insultin', etc. + +They haven't no manners nor gratitude too, +For the more that we help 'em, the less will they do, + But mock at, etc. + +Now the Line's but a man with a gun in his hand, +An' Cavalry's only what horses can stand, + When helped by, etc. + +Artillery moves by the leave o' the ground, +But ~we~ are the men that do something all round, + For ~we~ are, etc. + +I have stated it plain, an' my argument's thus + ("It's all one," says the Sapper), +There's only one Corps which is perfect -- that's us; + An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers, + Her Majesty's Royal Engineers, + With the rank and pay of a Sapper! + + + + +THAT DAY + + + +It got beyond all orders an' it got beyond all 'ope; + It got to shammin' wounded an' retirin' from the 'alt. +'Ole companies was lookin' for the nearest road to slope; + It were just a bloomin' knock-out -- an' our fault! + + Now there ain't no chorus 'ere to give, + Nor there ain't no band to play; + An' I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did, + Or seen what I seed that day! + +We was sick o' bein' punished, an' we let 'em know it, too; + An' a company-commander up an' 'it us with a sword, +An' some one shouted "'Ook it!" an' it come to ~sove-ki-poo~, + An' we chucked our rifles from us -- O my Gawd! + +There was thirty dead an' wounded on the ground we wouldn't keep -- + No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front begun to go; +But, Christ! along the line o' flight they cut us up like sheep, + An' that was all we gained by doin' so. + +I 'eard the knives be'ind me, but I dursn't face my man, + Nor I don't know where I went to, 'cause I didn't 'alt to see, +Till I 'eard a beggar squealin' out for quarter as 'e ran, + An' I thought I knew the voice an' -- it was me! + +We was 'idin' under bedsteads more than 'arf a march away; + We was lyin' up like rabbits all about the countryside; +An' the major cursed 'is Maker 'cause 'e lived to see that day, + An' the colonel broke 'is sword acrost, an' cried. + +We was rotten 'fore we started -- we was never disci~plined~; + We made it out a favour if an order was obeyed; +Yes, every little drummer 'ad 'is rights an' wrongs to mind, + So we had to pay for teachin' -- an' we paid! + +The papers 'id it 'andsome, but you know the Army knows; + We was put to groomin' camels till the regiments withdrew, +An' they gave us each a medal for subduin' England's foes, + An' I 'ope you like my song -- because it's true! + + An' there ain't no chorus 'ere to give, + Nor there ain't no band to play; + But I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did, + Or seen what I seed that day! + + + + +"THE MEN THAT FOUGHT AT MINDEN" + +A Song of Instruction + + + +The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time -- + So was them that fought at Waterloo! +All the 'ole command, yuss, from Minden to Maiwand, + They was once dam' sweeps like you! + + Then do not be discouraged, 'Eaven is your 'elper, + We'll learn you not to forget; + An' you mustn't swear an' curse, or you'll only catch it worse, + For we'll make you soldiers yet! + +The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad stocks beneath their chins, + Six inch 'igh an' more; +But fatigue it was their pride, and they ~would~ not be denied + To clean the cook-'ouse floor. + +The men that fought at Minden, they had anarchistic bombs + Served to 'em by name of 'and-grenades; +But they got it in the eye (same as you will by-an'-by) + When they clubbed their field-parades. + +The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad buttons up an' down, + Two-an'-twenty dozen of 'em told; +But they didn't grouse an' shirk at an hour's extry work, + They kept 'em bright as gold. + +The men that fought at Minden, they was armed with musketoons, + Also, they was drilled by 'alberdiers; +I don't know what they were, but the sergeants took good care + They washed be'ind their ears. + +The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad ever cash in 'and + Which they did not bank nor save, +But spent it gay an' free on their betters -- such as me -- + For the good advice I gave. + +The men that fought at Minden, they was civil -- yuss, they was -- + Never didn't talk o' rights an' wrongs, +But they got it with the toe (same as you will get it -- so!) -- + For interrupting songs. + +The men that fought at Minden, they was several other things + Which I don't remember clear; +But ~that's~ the reason why, now the six-year men are dry, + The rooks will stand the beer! + + Then do not be discouraged, 'Eaven is your 'elper, + We'll learn you not to forget; + An' you mustn't swear an' curse, or you'll only catch it worse, + For we'll make you soldiers yet! + + Soldiers yet, if you've got it in you -- + All for the sake of the Core; + Soldiers yet, if we 'ave to skin you -- + Run an' get the beer, Johnny Raw -- Johnny Raw! + Ho! run an' get the beer, Johnny Raw! + + + + +CHOLERA CAMP + + + +We've got the cholerer in camp -- it's worse than forty fights; + We're dyin' in the wilderness the same as Isrulites; +It's before us, an' be'ind us, an' we cannot get away, + An' the doctor's just reported we've ten more to-day! + + Oh, strike your camp an' go, the Bugle's callin', + The Rains are fallin' -- + The dead are bushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe below; + The Band's a-doin' all she knows to cheer us; + The Chaplain's gone and prayed to Gawd to 'ear us -- + To 'ear us -- + O Lord, for it's a-killin' of us so! + +Since August, when it started, it's been stickin' to our tail, +Though they've 'ad us out by marches an' they've 'ad us back by rail; +But it runs as fast as troop-trains, and we cannot get away; +An' the sick-list to the Colonel makes ten more to-day. + +There ain't no fun in women nor there ain't no bite to drink; +It's much too wet for shootin', we can only march and think; +An' at evenin', down the ~nullahs~, we can 'ear the jackals say, +"Get up, you rotten beggars, you've ten more to-day!" + +'Twould make a monkey cough to see our way o' doin' things -- +Lieutenants takin' companies an' captains takin' wings, +An' Lances actin' Sergeants -- eight file to obey -- +For we've lots o' quick promotion on ten deaths a day! + +Our Colonel's white an' twitterly -- 'e gets no sleep nor food, +But mucks about in 'orspital where nothing does no good. +'E sends us 'eaps o' comforts, all bought from 'is pay -- +But there aren't much comfort 'andy on ten deaths a day. + +Our Chaplain's got a banjo, an' a skinny mule 'e rides, +An' the stuff 'e says an' sings us, Lord, it makes us split our sides! +With 'is black coat-tails a-bobbin' to ~Ta-ra-ra Boom-der-ay!~ +'E's the proper kind o' ~padre~ for ten deaths a day. + +An' Father Victor 'elps 'im with our Roman Catholicks -- +He knows an 'eap of Irish songs an' rummy conjurin' tricks; +An' the two they works together when it comes to play or pray; +So we keep the ball a-rollin' on ten deaths a day. + +We've got the cholerer in camp -- we've got it 'ot an' sweet; +It ain't no Christmas dinner, but it's 'elped an' we must eat. +We've gone beyond the funkin', 'cause we've found it doesn't pay, +An' we're rockin' round the Districk on ten deaths a day! + + Then strike your camp an' go, the Rains are fallin', + The Bugle's callin'! + The dead are bushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe below! + An' them that do not like it they can lump it, + An' them that cannot stand it they can jump it; + We've got to die somewhere -- some way -- some'ow -- + We might as well begin to do it now! + Then, Number One, let down the tent-pole slow, + Knock out the pegs an' 'old the corners -- so! + Fold in the flies, furl up the ropes, an' stow! + Oh, strike -- oh, strike your camp an' go! + (Gawd 'elp us!) + + + + +THE LADIES + + + +I've taken my fun where I've found it; + I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; +I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, + An' four o' the lot was prime. +One was an 'arf-caste widow, + One was a woman at Prome, +One was the wife of a ~jemadar-sais~, [Head-groom.] + An' one is a girl at 'ome. + + Now I aren't no 'and with the ladies, + For, takin' 'em all along, + You never can say till you've tried 'em, + An' then you are like to be wrong. + There's times when you'll think that you mightn't, + There's times when you'll know that you might; + But the things you will learn from the Yellow an' Brown, + They'll 'elp you a lot with the White! + +I was a young un at 'Oogli, + Shy as a girl to begin; +Aggie de Castrer she made me, + An' Aggie was clever as sin; +Older than me, but my first un -- + More like a mother she were -- +Showed me the way to promotion an' pay, + An' I learned about women from 'er! + +Then I was ordered to Burma, + Actin' in charge o' Bazar, +An' I got me a tiddy live 'eathen + Through buyin' supplies off 'er pa. +Funny an' yellow an' faithful -- + Doll in a teacup she were, +But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair, + An' I learned about women from 'er! + +Then we was shifted to Neemuch + (Or I might ha' been keepin' 'er now), +An' I took with a shiny she-devil, + The wife of a nigger at Mhow; +'Taught me the gipsy-folks' ~bolee~; [Slang.] + Kind o' volcano she were, +For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white, + And I learned about women from 'er! + +Then I come 'ome in the trooper, + 'Long of a kid o' sixteen -- +Girl from a convent at Meerut, + The straightest I ever 'ave seen. +Love at first sight was 'er trouble, + ~She~ didn't know what it were; +An' I wouldn't do such, 'cause I liked 'er too much, + But -- I learned about women from 'er! + +I've taken my fun where I've found it, + An' now I must pay for my fun, +For the more you 'ave known o' the others + The less will you settle to one; +An' the end of it's sittin' and thinkin', + An' dreamin' Hell-fires to see; +So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not), + An' learn about women from me! + + What did the Colonel's Lady think? + Nobody never knew. + Somebody asked the Sergeant's wife, + ~An'~ she told 'em true! + When you get to a man in the case, + They're like as a row of pins -- + For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady + Are sisters under their skins! + + + + +BILL 'AWKINS + + + + "'As anybody seen Bill 'Awkins?" + "Now 'ow in the devil would I know?" +"'E's taken my girl out walkin', + An' I've got to tell 'im so -- + Gawd -- bless -- 'im! + I've got to tell 'im so." + + "D'yer know what 'e's like, Bill 'Awkins?" + "Now what in the devil would I care?" +"'E's the livin', breathin' image of an organ-grinder's monkey, + With a pound of grease in 'is 'air -- + Gawd -- bless -- 'im! + An' a pound o' grease in 'is 'air." + + "An' s'pose you met Bill 'Awkins, + Now what in the devil 'ud ye do?" +"I'd open 'is cheek to 'is chin-strap buckle, + An' bung up 'is both eyes, too -- + Gawd -- bless -- 'im! + An' bung up 'is both eyes, too!" + + "Look 'ere, where 'e comes, Bill 'Awkins! + Now what in the devil will you say?" +"It isn't fit an' proper to be fightin' on a Sunday, + So I'll pass 'im the time o' day -- + Gawd -- bless -- 'im! + I'll pass 'im the time o' day!" + + + + +THE MOTHER-LODGE + + + +There was Rundle, Station Master, + An' Beazeley of the Rail, +An' 'Ackman, Commissariat, + An' Donkin' o' the Jail; +An' Blake, Conductor-Sargent, + Our Master twice was 'e, +With 'im that kept the Europe-shop, + Old Framjee Eduljee. + + Outside -- "Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!" + Inside -- "Brother", an' it doesn't do no 'arm. + We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square, + An' I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there! + +We'd Bola Nath, Accountant, + An' Saul the Aden Jew, +An' Din Mohammed, draughtsman + Of the Survey Office too; +There was Babu Chuckerbutty, + An' Amir Singh the Sikh, +An' Castro from the fittin'-sheds, + The Roman Catholick! + +We 'adn't good regalia, + An' our Lodge was old an' bare, +But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, + An' we kep' 'em to a hair; +An' lookin' on it backwards + It often strikes me thus, +There ain't such things as infidels, + Excep', per'aps, it's us. + +For monthly, after Labour, + We'd all sit down and smoke +(We dursn't give no banquits, + Lest a Brother's caste were broke), +An' man on man got talkin' + Religion an' the rest, +An' every man comparin' + Of the God 'e knew the best. + +So man on man got talkin', + An' not a Brother stirred +Till mornin' waked the parrots + An' that dam' brain-fever-bird; +We'd say 'twas 'ighly curious, + An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed, +With Mo'ammed, God, an' Shiva + Changin' pickets in our 'ead. + +Full oft on Guv'ment service + This rovin' foot 'ath pressed, +An' bore fraternal greetin's + To the Lodges east an' west, +Accordin' as commanded + From Kohat to Singapore, +But I wish that I might see them + In my Mother-Lodge once more! + +I wish that I might see them, + My Brethren black an' brown, +With the trichies smellin' pleasant + An' the ~hog-darn~ passin' down; [Cigar-lighter.] +An' the old khansamah snorin' [Butler.] + On the bottle-khana floor, [Pantry.] +Like a Master in good standing + With my Mother-Lodge once more! + + Outside -- "Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!" + Inside -- "Brother", an' it doesn't do no 'arm. + We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square, + An' I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there! + + + + +"FOLLOW ME 'OME" + + + + There was no one like 'im, 'Orse or Foot, + Nor any o' the Guns I knew; +An' because it was so, why, o' course 'e went an' died, + Which is just what the best men do. + + So it's knock out your pipes an' follow me! + An' it's finish up your swipes an' follow me! + Oh, 'ark to the big drum callin', + Follow me -- follow me 'ome! + + 'Is mare she neighs the 'ole day long, + She paws the 'ole night through, +An' she won't take 'er feed 'cause o' waitin' for 'is step, + Which is just what a beast would do. + + 'Is girl she goes with a bombardier + Before 'er month is through; +An' the banns are up in church, for she's got the beggar hooked, + Which is just what a girl would do. + + We fought 'bout a dog -- last week it were -- + No more than a round or two; +But I strook 'im cruel 'ard, an' I wish I 'adn't now, + Which is just what a man can't do. + + 'E was all that I 'ad in the way of a friend, + An' I've 'ad to find one new; +But I'd give my pay an' stripe for to get the beggar back, + Which it's just too late to do. + + So it's knock out your pipes an' follow me! + An' it's finish off your swipes an' follow me! + Oh, 'ark to the fifes a-crawlin'! + Follow me -- follow me 'ome! + + Take 'im away! 'E's gone where the best men go. + Take 'im away! An' the gun-wheels turnin' slow. + Take 'im away! There's more from the place 'e come. + Take 'im away, with the limber an' the drum. + + For it's "Three rounds blank" an' follow me, + An' it's "Thirteen rank" an' follow me; + Oh, passin' the love o' women, + Follow me -- follow me 'ome! + + + + +THE SERGEANT'S WEDDIN' + + + +'E was warned agin' 'er -- + That's what made 'im look; +She was warned agin' 'im -- + That is why she took. +'Wouldn't 'ear no reason, + 'Went an' done it blind; +We know all about 'em, + They've got all to find! + + Cheer for the Sergeant's weddin' -- + Give 'em one cheer more! + Grey gun-'orses in the lando, + An' a rogue is married to, etc. + +What's the use o' tellin' + 'Arf the lot she's been? +'E's a bloomin' robber, + ~An'~ 'e keeps canteen. +'Ow did 'e get 'is buggy? + Gawd, you needn't ask! +'Made 'is forty gallon + Out of every cask! + +Watch 'im, with 'is 'air cut, + Count us filin' by -- +Won't the Colonel praise 'is + Pop -- u -- lar -- i -- ty! +We 'ave scores to settle -- + Scores for more than beer; +She's the girl to pay 'em -- + That is why we're 'ere! + +See the chaplain thinkin'? + See the women smile? +Twig the married winkin' + As they take the aisle? +Keep your side-arms quiet, + Dressin' by the Band. +Ho! You 'oly beggars, + Cough be'ind your 'and! + +Now it's done an' over, + 'Ear the organ squeak, +"~'Voice that breathed o'er Eden~" -- + Ain't she got the cheek! +White an' laylock ribbons, + Think yourself so fine! +I'd pray Gawd to take yer + 'Fore I made yer mine! + +Escort to the kerridge, + Wish 'im luck, the brute! +Chuck the slippers after -- + [Pity 'tain't a boot!] +Bowin' like a lady, + Blushin' like a lad -- +'Oo would say to see 'em + Both is rotten bad? + + Cheer for the Sergeant's weddin' -- + Give 'em one cheer more! + Grey gun-'orses in the lando, + An' a rogue is married to, etc. + + + + +THE JACKET + + + +Through the Plagues of Egyp' we was chasin' Arabi, + Gettin' down an' shovin' in the sun; +An' you might 'ave called us dirty, an' you might ha' called us dry, + An' you might 'ave 'eard us talkin' at the gun. +But the Captain 'ad 'is jacket, an' the jacket it was new -- + ('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!) +An' the wettin' of the jacket is the proper thing to do, + Nor we didn't keep 'im waitin' very long. + +One day they gave us orders for to shell a sand redoubt, + Loadin' down the axle-arms with case; +But the Captain knew 'is dooty, an' he took the crackers out + An' he put some proper liquor in its place. +An' the Captain saw the shrapnel, which is six-an'-thirty clear. + ('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!) +"Will you draw the weight," sez 'e, "or will you draw the beer?" + An' we didn't keep 'im waitin' very long. + ~For the Captain, etc.~ + +Then we trotted gentle, not to break the bloomin' glass, + Though the Arabites 'ad all their ranges marked; +But we dursn't 'ardly gallop, for the most was bottled Bass, + An' we'd dreamed of it since we was disembarked: +So we fired economic with the shells we 'ad in 'and, + ('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!) +But the beggars under cover 'ad the impidence to stand, + An' we couldn't keep 'em waitin' very long. + ~And the Captain, etc.~ + +So we finished 'arf the liquor (an' the Captain took champagne), + An' the Arabites was shootin' all the while; +An' we left our wounded 'appy with the empties on the plain, + An' we used the bloomin' guns for pro-jec-tile! +We limbered up an' galloped -- there were nothin' else to do -- + ('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!) +An' the Battery came a-boundin' like a boundin' kangaroo, + But they didn't watch us comin' very long. + ~As the Captain, etc.~ + +We was goin' most extended -- we was drivin' very fine, + An' the Arabites were loosin' 'igh an' wide, +Till the Captain took the glassy with a rattlin' right incline, + An' we dropped upon their 'eads the other side. +Then we give 'em quarter -- such as 'adn't up and cut, + ('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!) +An' the Captain stood a limberful of fizzy -- somethin' Brutt, + But we didn't leave it fizzing very long. + ~For the Captain, etc.~ + +We might ha' been court-martialled, but it all come out all right + When they signalled us to join the main command. +There was every round expended, there was every gunner tight, + An' the Captain waved a corkscrew in 'is 'and. + ~But the Captain 'ad 'is jacket, etc.~ + + + + +THE 'EATHEN + + + +The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone; +'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; +'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about, +An' then comes up the regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out. + + All along o' dirtiness, all along o' mess, + All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less, + All along of abby-nay, kul, an' hazar-ho, * + Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so! + +* abby-nay: Not now. kul: To-morrow. hazar-ho: Wait a bit. + +The young recruit is 'aughty -- 'e draf's from Gawd knows where; +They bid 'im show 'is stockin's an' lay 'is mattress square; +'E calls it bloomin' nonsense -- 'e doesn't know no more -- +An' then up comes 'is Company an' kicks 'im round the floor! + +The young recruit is 'ammered -- 'e takes it very 'ard; +'E 'angs 'is 'ead an' mutters -- 'e sulks about the yard; +'E talks o' "cruel tyrants" 'e'll swing for by-an'-by, +An' the others 'ears an' mocks 'im, an' the boy goes orf to cry. + +The young recruit is silly -- 'e thinks o' suicide; +'E's lost 'is gutter-devil; 'e 'asn't got 'is pride; +But day by day they kicks 'im, which 'elps 'im on a bit, +Till 'e finds 'isself one mornin' with a full an' proper kit. + + Gettin' clear o' dirtiness, gettin' done with mess, + Gettin' shut o' doin' things rather-more-or-less; + Not so fond of abby-nay, kul, nor hazar-ho, + Learns to keep 'is rifle an' 'isself jus' so! + +The young recruit is 'appy -- 'e throws a chest to suit; +You see 'im grow mustaches; you 'ear 'im slap 'is boot; +'E learns to drop the "bloodies" from every word 'e slings, +An' 'e shows an 'ealthy brisket when 'e strips for bars an' rings. + +The cruel-tyrant-sergeants they watch 'im 'arf a year; +They watch 'im with 'is comrades, they watch 'im with 'is beer; +They watch 'im with the women at the regimental dance, +And the cruel-tyrant-sergeants send 'is name along for "Lance". + +An' now 'e's 'arf o' nothin', an' all a private yet, +'Is room they up an' rags 'im to see what they will get; +They rags 'im low an' cunnin', each dirty trick they can, +But 'e learns to sweat 'is temper an' 'e learns to sweat 'is man. + +An', last, a Colour-Sergeant, as such to be obeyed, +'E schools 'is men at cricket, 'e tells 'em on parade; +They sees 'em quick an' 'andy, uncommon set an' smart, +An' so 'e talks to orficers which 'ave the Core at 'eart. + +'E learns to do 'is watchin' without it showin' plain; +'E learns to save a dummy, an' shove 'im straight again; +'E learns to check a ranker that's buyin' leave to shirk; +An' 'e learns to make men like 'im so they'll learn to like their work. + +An' when it comes to marchin' he'll see their socks are right, +An' when it comes to action 'e shows 'em 'ow to sight; +'E knows their ways of thinkin' and just what's in their mind; +'E knows when they are takin' on an' when they've fell be'ind. + +'E knows each talkin' corpril that leads a squad astray; +'E feels 'is innards 'eavin', 'is bowels givin' way; +'E sees the blue-white faces all tryin' 'ard to grin, +An' 'e stands an' waits an' suffers till it's time to cap 'em in. + +An' now the hugly bullets come peckin' through the dust, +An' no one wants to face 'em, but every beggar must; +So, like a man in irons which isn't glad to go, +They moves 'em off by companies uncommon stiff an' slow. + +Of all 'is five years' schoolin' they don't remember much +Excep' the not retreatin', the step an' keepin' touch. +It looks like teachin' wasted when they duck an' spread an' 'op, +But if 'e 'adn't learned 'em they'd be all about the shop! + +An' now it's "'Oo goes backward?" an' now it's "'Oo comes on?" +And now it's "Get the doolies," an' now the captain's gone; +An' now it's bloody murder, but all the while they 'ear +'Is voice, the same as barrick drill, a-shepherdin' the rear. + +'E's just as sick as they are, 'is 'eart is like to split, +But 'e works 'em, works 'em, works 'em till he feels 'em take the bit; +The rest is 'oldin' steady till the watchful bugles play, +An' 'e lifts 'em, lifts 'em, lifts 'em through the charge that wins the day! + + The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone; + 'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; + The 'eathen in 'is blindness must end where 'e began, + But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man! + + Keep away from dirtiness -- keep away from mess. + Don't get into doin' things rather-more-or-less! + Let's ha' done with abby-nay, kul, an' hazar-ho; + Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so! + + + + +THE SHUT-EYE SENTRY + + + +Sez the Junior Orderly Sergeant + To the Senior Orderly Man: +"Our Orderly Orf'cer's ~hokee-mut~, + You 'elp 'im all you can. +For the wine was old and the night is cold, + An' the best we may go wrong, +So, 'fore 'e gits to the sentry-box, + You pass the word along." + + So it was "Rounds! What Rounds?" at two of a frosty night, + 'E's 'oldin' on by the sergeant's sash, but, sentry, shut your eye. + An' it was "Pass! All's well!" Oh, ain't 'e drippin' tight! + 'E'll need an affidavit pretty badly by-an'-by. + +The moon was white on the barricks, + The road was white an' wide, +An' the Orderly Orf'cer took it all, + An' the ten-foot ditch beside. +An' the corporal pulled an' the sergeant pushed, + An' the three they danced along, +But I'd shut my eyes in the sentry-box, + So I didn't see nothin' wrong. + + Though it was "Rounds! What Rounds?" O corporal, 'old 'im up! + 'E's usin' 'is cap as it shouldn't be used, but, sentry, shut your eye. + An' it was "Pass! All's well!" Ho, shun the foamin' cup! + 'E'll need, etc. + +'Twas after four in the mornin'; + We 'ad to stop the fun, +An' we sent 'im 'ome on a bullock-cart, + With 'is belt an' stock undone; +But we sluiced 'im down an' we washed 'im out, + An' a first-class job we made, +When we saved 'im, smart as a bombardier, + For six-o'clock parade. + + It 'ad been "Rounds! What Rounds?" Oh, shove 'im straight again! + 'E's usin' 'is sword for a bicycle, but, sentry, shut your eye. + An' it was "Pass! All's well!" 'E's called me "Darlin' Jane"! + 'E'll need, etc. + +The drill was long an' 'eavy, + The sky was 'ot an' blue, +An' 'is eye was wild an' 'is 'air was wet, + But 'is sergeant pulled 'im through. +Our men was good old trusties -- + They'd done it on their 'ead; +But you ought to 'ave 'eard 'em markin' time + To 'ide the things 'e said! + + For it was "Right flank -- wheel!" for "'Alt, an' stand at ease!" + An' "Left extend!" for "Centre close!" O marker, shut your eye! + An' it was, "'Ere, sir, 'ere! before the Colonel sees!" + So he needed affidavits pretty badly by-an'-by. + +There was two-an'-thirty sergeants, + There was corp'rals forty-one, +There was just nine 'undred rank an' file + To swear to a touch o' sun. +There was me 'e'd kissed in the sentry-box, + As I 'ave not told in my song, +But I took my oath, which were Bible truth, + I 'adn't seen nothin' wrong. + +There's them that's 'ot an' 'aughty, + There's them that's cold an' 'ard, +But there comes a night when the best gets tight, + And then turns out the Guard. +I've seen them 'ide their liquor + In every kind o' way, +But most depends on makin' friends + With Privit Thomas A.! + + When it is "Rounds! What Rounds?" 'E's breathin' through 'is nose. + 'E's reelin', rollin', roarin' tight, but, sentry, shut your eye. + An' it is "Pass! All's well!" An' that's the way it goes: + We'll 'elp 'im for 'is mother, an' 'e'll 'elp us by-an'-by! + + + + +"MARY, PITY WOMEN!" + + + +You call yourself a man, + For all you used to swear, +An' leave me, as you can, + My certain shame to bear? + I 'ear! You do not care -- +You done the worst you know. + I 'ate you, grinnin' there. . . . +Ah, Gawd, I love you so! + + Nice while it lasted, an' now it is over -- + Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to your lover! + What's the use o' grievin', when the mother that bore you + (Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you? + +It aren't no false alarm, + The finish to your fun; +You -- you 'ave brung the 'arm, + An' I'm the ruined one; + An' now you'll off an' run +With some new fool in tow. + Your 'eart? You 'aven't none. . . . +Ah, Gawd, I love you so! + + When a man is tired there is naught will bind 'im; + All 'e solemn promised 'e will shove be'ind 'im. + What's the good o' prayin' for The Wrath to strike 'im + (Mary, pity women!), when the rest are like 'im? + +What 'ope for me or -- it? + What's left for us to do? +I've walked with men a bit, + But this -- but this is you. +So 'elp me Christ, it's true! + Where can I 'ide or go? +You coward through and through! . . . + Ah, Gawd, I love you so! + + All the more you give 'em the less are they for givin' -- + Love lies dead, an' you cannot kiss 'im livin'. + Down the road 'e led you there is no returnin' + (Mary, pity women!), but you're late in learnin'! + +You'd like to treat me fair? + You can't, because we're pore? +We'd starve? What do I care! + We might, but ~this~ is shore! + I want the name -- no more -- +The name, an' lines to show, + An' not to be an 'ore. . . . +Ah, Gawd, I love you so! + + What's the good o' pleadin', when the mother that bore you + (Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you? + Sleep on 'is promises an' wake to your sorrow + (Mary, pity women!), for we sail to-morrow! + + + + +FOR TO ADMIRE + + + +The Injian Ocean sets an' smiles + So sof', so bright, so bloomin' blue; +There aren't a wave for miles an' miles + Excep' the jiggle from the screw. +The ship is swep', the day is done, + The bugle's gone for smoke and play; +An' black agin' the settin' sun + The Lascar sings, "~Hum deckty hai!~" ["I'm looking out."] + + For to admire an' for to see, + For to be'old this world so wide -- + It never done no good to me, + But I can't drop it if I tried! + +I see the sergeants pitchin' quoits, + I 'ear the women laugh an' talk, +I spy upon the quarter-deck + The orficers an' lydies walk. +I thinks about the things that was, + An' leans an' looks acrost the sea, +Till spite of all the crowded ship + There's no one lef' alive but me. + +The things that was which I 'ave seen, + In barrick, camp, an' action too, +I tells them over by myself, + An' sometimes wonders if they're true; +For they was odd -- most awful odd -- + But all the same now they are o'er, +There must be 'eaps o' plenty such, + An' if I wait I'll see some more. + +Oh, I 'ave come upon the books, + An' frequent broke a barrick rule, +An' stood beside an' watched myself + Be'avin' like a bloomin' fool. +I paid my price for findin' out, + Nor never grutched the price I paid, +But sat in Clink without my boots, + Admirin' 'ow the world was made. + +Be'old a crowd upon the beam, + An' 'umped above the sea appears +Old Aden, like a barrick-stove + That no one's lit for years an' years! +I passed by that when I began, + An' I go 'ome the road I came, +A time-expired soldier-man + With six years' service to 'is name. + +My girl she said, "Oh, stay with me!" + My mother 'eld me to 'er breast. +They've never written none, an' so + They must 'ave gone with all the rest -- +With all the rest which I 'ave seen + An' found an' known an' met along. +I cannot say the things I feel, + And so I sing my evenin' song: + + For to admire an' for to see, + For to be'old this world so wide -- + It never done no good to me, + But I can't drop it if I tried! + + + + +L'ENVOI + + + +When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, +When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, +We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it -- lie down for an ]aeon or two, +Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew! + +And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; +They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair; +They shall find real saints to draw from -- Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; +They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! + +And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; +And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, +But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, +Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are! + + + + + +The End. + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Kipling's Verses (Volume XI) + + + + diff --git a/old/11kip10.zip b/old/11kip10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b308d2b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11kip10.zip |