From all of

               his Pack he may claim

Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may

               refuse him the same.

Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of

               her year she may claim

One haunch of each kill for her litter; and none may

               deny her the same.

Cave-right is the right of the Father – to hunt by

               himself for his own:

He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the

               Council alone.

Because of his age and his cunning, because of his

               gripe and his paw,

In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head

               Wolf is Law.

Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and

               mighty are they;

But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and

               the hump is – Obey!

ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG

Here we go in a flung festoon,

Half-way up to the jealous moon!

Don’t you envy our pranceful bands?

Don’t you wish you had extra hands?

Wouldn’t you like if your tails were – so –

Curved in the shape of a Cupid’s bow?

    Now you’re angry but – never mind,

    Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

Here we sit in a branchy row,

Thinking of beautiful things we know;

Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,

All complete, in a minute or two –

Something noble and grand and good,

Won by merely wishing we could.

    Now we’re going to – never mind,

    Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

All the talk we ever have heard

Uttered by bat or beast or bird –

Hide or fin or scale or feather –

Jabber it quickly and all together!

Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!

Now we are talking just like men.

Let’s pretend we are … Never mind!

    Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

    This is the way of the Monkey-kind!

Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,

That rocket by where, light and high, the wild-grape swings.

By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,

Be sure – be sure, we’re going to do some splendid things!

THE MARRIED MAN

The bachelor ’e fights for one

    As joyful as can be;

But the married man don’t call it fun,

    Because he fights for three –

For ’Im an’ ’Er an’ It

    (An’ Two an’ One makes Three)

’E wants to finish ’is little bit,

    An’ ’e wants to go ’ome to ’is tea!

The bachelor pokes up ’is ’ead

    To see if you are gone;

But the married man lies down instead,

    An’ waits till the sights come on,

For ’Im an’ ’Er an’ a hit

    (Direct or ricochee)

’E wants to finish ’is little bit,

    An’ ’e wants to go ’ome to ’is tea.

The bachelor will miss you clear

    To fight another day;

But the married man, ’e says ‘No fear!’

    ’e wants you out of the way

Of ’Im an’ ’Er an’ It

    (An’ ’is road to ’is farm or the sea),

’E wants to finish ’is little bit,

    An’ ’e wants to go ’ome to ’is tea.

The bachelor ’e fights ’is fight

    An’ stretches out an’ snores;

But the married man sits up all night –

    For ’e don’t like out-o’-doors.

’E’ll strain an’ listen an’ peer

    An’ give the first alarm –

For the sake o’ the breathin’ ’e’s used to ’ear,

    An’ the ’ead on the thick of ’is arm.

The bachelor may risk ’is ’ide

    To ’elp you when you’re downed;

But the married man will wait beside

    Till the ambulance comes round.

’E’ll take your ’ome address

    An’ all you’ve time to say,

Or if ’e sees there’s ’ope, ’e’ll press

    Your art’ry ’alf the day –

– For ’Im an’ ’Er an’ It

    (An’ One from Three leaves Two),

For ’e knows you wanted to finish your bit,

    An’ ’e knows ’oo’s wantin’ you.

Yes, ’Im an’ ’Er an’ It

    (Our ’oly One in Three),

We’re all of us anxious to finish our bit,

    An’ we want to get ’ome to our tea!

Yes, It an’ ’Er an’ ’Im,

    Which often makes me think

The married man must sink or swim

    An’ – ’e can’t afford to sink!

Oh, ’Im an’ It and ’Er

    Since Adam an’ Eve began!

So I’d rather fight with the bacheler

    An’ be nursed by the married man!

‘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 ag’in in the settin’ sun

    The Lascar sings, ‘Hum deckty hai!’

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,

    Not never grutched the price I paid,

But sat in Clink without my boots,

    Admirin’ ’ow the world was made.

Be’old a cloud 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,

    An’ 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!

BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA

‘And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura.’

Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way

By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,

Be gentle when the ‘heathen’ pray

    To Buddha at Kamakura!

To Him the Way, the Law, Apart

Whom Maya held beneath her heart,

Ananda’s Lord, the Bodhisat,

    The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though He neither burns nor sees,

Nor hears ye thank your Deities,

Ye have not sinned with such as these,

    His children at Kamakura,

Yet spare us still the Western joke

When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke

The little sins of little folk

    That worship at Kamakura –

The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies

That flit beneath the Master’s eyes –

He is beyond the Mysteries

    But loves them at Kamakura.

And whoso will, from Pride released,

Contemning neither creed nor priest,

May feel the Soul of all the East

    About him at Kamakura.

Yea, every tale Ananda heard,

Of birth as fish or beast or bird,

While yet in lives the Master stirred,

    The warm wind brings Kamakura.

Till drowsy eyelids seem to see

A-flower ’neath her golden htee

The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly

    From Burma to Kamakura.

And down the loaded air there comes

The thunder of Thibetan drums,

And droned – ‘Om mane padme hum’s’

    A world’s-width from Kamakura.

Yet Brahmans rule Benares still,

Buddh-Gaya’s ruins pit the hill,

And beef-fed zealots threaten ill

    To Buddha and Kamakura.

A tourist-show, a legend told,

A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,

So much, and scarce so much, ye hold

    The meaning of Kamakura?

But when the morning prayer is prayed,

Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,

Is God in human image made

    No nearer than Kamakura?

From THE JUNGLE BOOK

The stream is shrunk – the pool is dry,

And we be comrades, thou and I;

With fevered jowl and dusty flank

Each jostling each along the bank;

And, by one drouthy fear made still,

Forgoing thought of quest or kill.

Now ’neath his dam the fawn may see

The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,

And the tall buck, unflinching, note

The fangs that tore his father’s throat.

The pools are shrunk – the streams are dry,

And we be playmates, thou and I,

Till yonder cloud – Good Hunting! – loose

The rain that breaks our Water Truce.

                                                How Fear Came.

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 sails. Romance, farewell!’

‘Goodbye, 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, goodbye!’

‘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 LADIES

I’ve taken my fun where I found it;

    I’ve rogued an’ I’ve ranged in my time;

I’ve ‘ad my pickin’ o’ sweethearts,

    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,

    An’ one is a girl at ’ome.

Now I aren’t no ‘and with the ladies,

    For, taken’ ’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 then 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;

    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 ever knew.

Somebody asked the Sergeant’s Wife,

    An’ she told ’em trae!

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!

RECESSIONAL

God of our fathers, known of old,

    Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

    Dominion over palm and pine –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

    The captains and the kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

    An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

    On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

    Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose,

    Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

    Or lesser breeds without the Law –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

    In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

    And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word –

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

                                                Amen.

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

Take up the White Man’s burden –

    Send forth the best ye breed –

Go bind your sons to exile

    To serve your captives’ need;

To wait in heavy harness

    On fluttered folk and wild –

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

    Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man’s Burden –

    In patience to abide,

To veil the threat of terror

    And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,

    An hundred times made plain,

To seek another’s profit,

    And work another’s gain.

Take up the White Man’s burden –

    The savage wars of peace –

Fill full the mouth of Famine

    And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

    The end for others sought,

Watch Sloth and heathen Folly

    Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man’s burden –

    No tawdry rule of kings,

But toil of serf and sweeper –

    The tale of common things.

The ports ye shall not enter,

    The roads ye shall not tread,

Go make them with your living,

    And mark them with your dead!

Take up the White Man’s burden –

    And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better,

    The hate of those ye guard –

The cry of hosts ye humour

    (Ah, slowly!) toward the light: –

Why brought ye us from bondage,

    ‘Our loved Egyptian night?’

Take up the White Man’s burden –

    Ye dare not stoop to less –

Nor call too loud on Freedom

    To cloak your weariness;

By all ye cry or whisper,

    By all ye leave or do,

The silent, sullen peoples

    Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man’s burden –

    Have done with childish days –

The lightly proffered laurel,

    The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

    Through all the thankless years,

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,

    The judgment of your peers!

A SCHOOL SONG

‘Let us now praise famous men’ –

    Men of little showing –

For their work continueth,

And their work continueth,

Broad and deep continueth,

    Greater than their knowing!

Western wind and open surge

    Took us from our mothers;

Flung us on a naked shore

(Twelve bleak houses by the shore!

Seven summers by the shore!)

    ’Mid two hundred brothers.

There we met with famous men

    Set in office o’er us;

And they beat on us with rods –

Faithfully with many rods –

Daily beat us on with rods,

    For the love they bore us!

Out of Egypt unto Troy –

    Over Himalaya –

Far and sure our bands have gone –

Hy-Brazil or Babylon,

Islands of the Southern Run,

    And Cities of Cathaia!

And we all praise famous men –

    Ancients of the College;

For they taught us common sense –

Tried to teach us common sense –

Truth and God’s Own Common Sense,

    Which is more than knowledge!

Each degree of Latitude

    Strung about Creation

Seeth one, (or more), of us

(Of one muster all of us),

Diligent in that he does,

    Keen in his vocation.

This we learned from famous men,

    Knowing not its uses,

When they showed, in daily work,

Man must finish off his work –

Right or wrong, his daily work –

    And without excuses.

Servants of the Staff and chain,

    Mine and fuse and grapnel –

Some, before the face of Kings,

Stand before the face of Kings;

Bearing gifts to divers Kings –

    Gifts of case and shrapnel.

This we learned from famous men

    Teaching in our borders,

Who declarèd it was the best,

Safest, easiest, and best –

Expeditious, wise, and best –

    To obey your orders.

Some beneath the further stars

    Bear the greater burden:

Set to serve the lands they rule,

(Save he serve no man may rule),

Serve and love the lands they rule;

    Seeking praise nor guerdon.

This we learned from famous men,

    Knowing not we learned it.

Only, as the years went by –

Lonely, as the years went by –

Far from help as years went by,

    Plainer we discerned it.

Wherefore praise we famous men

    From whose bays we borrow –

They that put aside To-day –

All the joys of their To-day –

And with toil of their To-day

    Bought for us To-morrow!

Bless and praise we famous men –

    Men of little showing –

For their work continueth,

And their work continueth,

Broad and deep continueth,

    Great beyond their knowing!

THE TWO-SIDED MAN

Much I owe to the Lands that grew –

More to the Lives that fed –

But most to Allah Who gave me two

Separate sides to my head.

Much I reflect on the Good and the True

In the Faiths beneath the sun,

But most upon Allah Who gave me two

Sides to my head, not one.

Wesley’s following, Calvin’s flock,

White or yellow or bronze,

Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok,

Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze –

Here is a health, my brothers, to you,

However your prayers are said,

And praised be Allah Who gave me two

Separate sides to my head!

I would go without shirt or shoe,

Friend, tobacco or bread,

Sooner than lose for a minute the two

Separate sides of my head!

BRIDGE-GUARD IN THE KARROO

‘… and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.’

District Orders: Lines of Communication – South

               African War

               Sudden the desert changes,

                         The raw glare softens and clings,

               Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges

                         Stand up like the thrones of Kings –

               Ramparts of slaughter and peril –

                         Blazing, amazing – aglow

               ’Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl

                         And the wine-dark flats below.

               Royal the pageant closes,

                         Lit by the last of the sun –

               Opal and ash-of-roses,

                         Cinnamon, umber, and dun.

               The twilight swallows the thicket,

                         The starlight reveals the ridge.

               The whistle shrills to the picket –

                         We are changing guard on the bridge.

               (Few, forgotten and lonely,

                         Where the empty metals shine –

               No, not combatants – only

                         Details guarding the line.)

               We slip through the broken panel

                         Of fence by the ganger’s shed;

               We drop to the waterless channel

                         And the lean track overhead;

               We stumble on refuse of rations,

                         The beef- and the biscuit-tins;

               We take our appointed stations,

                         And the endless night begins.

               We hear the Hottentot herders

                         As the sheep click past to the fold –

               And the click of the restless girders

                         As the steel contracts in the cold –

               Voices of jackals calling

                         And, loud in the hush between,

               A morsel of dry earth falling

                         From the flanks of the scarred ravine.

               And the solemn firmament marches,

                         And the hosts of heaven rise

               Framed through the iron arches –

                         Banded and barred by the ties,

               Till we feel the far track humming,

                         And we see her headlight plain,

               And we gather and wait her coming –

                         The wonderful north-bound train.

               (Few, forgotten and lonely,

                         Where the white car-windows shine –

               No, not combatants – only

                         Details guarding the line.)

               Quick, ere the gift escape us!

                         Out of the darkness we reach

               For a handful of week-old papers

                         And a mouthful of human speech.

               And the monstrous heaven rejoices,

                         And the earth allows again

               Meetings, greetings, and voices

                         Of women talking with men.

               So we return to our places,

                         As out on the bridge she rolls;

               And the darkness covers our faces,

                         And the darkness re-enters our souls.

               More than a little lonely

                         Where the lessening tail-lights shine.

               No – not combatants – only

                         Details guarding the line!

THE ISLANDERS

No doubt but ye are the People – your throne is above

               the King’s.

Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things:

Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear –

Bringing the word well smoothen – such as a King

               should hear.

Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your

               leaden seas,

Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down

               at ease;

Till ye said of Strife, ‘What is it?’ of the Sword, ‘It is

               far from our ken’;

Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy

               of your armèd men.

Ye stopped your ears to the warning – ye would

               neither look nor heed –

Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts

               above their need.

Because of your witless learning and your beasts of

               warren and chase,

Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields

               for their camping place.

Ye forced them glean in the highways the straw for

               the bricks they brought;

Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye

               never taught.

Ye hindered and hampered and crippled; ye thrust out

               of sight and away

Those that would serve you for honour and those that

               served you for pay.

Then were the judgments loosened; then was your

               shame revealed,

At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field.

Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land’s

               long-suffering star),

When your strong men cheered in their millions while

               your striplings went to the war.

Sons of the sheltered city – unmade, unhandled, unmeet –

Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them

               raw from the street.

And what did you look they should compass?

               Warcraft learned in a breath,

Knowledge unto occasion at the fast far view of Death?

So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed

               and prize?

How are the beasts more worthy than the souls you

               sacrifice?

But ye said, ‘Their valour shall show them’; but ye

               said, ‘The end is close.’

And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them

               harry your foes:

And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye

               flaunted your iron pride,

Ere – ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men

               who could shoot and ride!

Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented

               your souls

With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied

               oafs at the goals.

Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie,

Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the

               months go by

Waiting some easy wonder, hoping some saving sign –

Idle – openly idle – in the lee of the forespent Line.

Idle – except for your boasting – and what is your

               boasting worth

If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life

               on earth?

Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set,

Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget

It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with

               the deep.

Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep.

Men, not children, servants, or kinsfolk called

               from afar,

But each man born in the Island broke to the matter

               of war.

Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same,

Each man born in the Island entered at youth to

               the game –

As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste,

But after trial and labour, by temperance, living

               chaste.

As it were almost cricket – as it were even your play,

Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised

               day and day.

So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless

               lightnings wake

In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid

               nations quake.

So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul

               shall leap

Forthright, accoutred, accepting – alert from the wells

               of sleep.

So at the threat ye shall summon – so at the need ye

               shall send

Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to

               the end;

Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise,

Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice …

But ye say, ‘It will mar our comfort.’ Ye say, ‘It will

               minish our trade.’

Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how

               a gun is laid?

(For the low, red glare to southward when the raided

               coast-towns burn?

Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time

               to learn.)

Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even

               the odds,

With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and

               bats and rods?

Will the rabbit war with your foeman – the red deer

               horn them for hire?

Your kept cock-pheasant keep you? – he is master of

               many a shire.

Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, un thanking, gelt,

Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their

               brow-beat columns melt?

Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or

               ballot them back from your shore?

Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike

               no more?

Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye

               were idle both?

Pride by insolence chastened? Indolence purged

               by sloth?)

No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make

               you afraid?

Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods

               shall aid.

Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease;

Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes;

Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement

               gods –

These shall come down to the battle and snatch you

               from under the rods?

From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless

               salvoes rent,

And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence

               they were sent.

When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are

               scourged as with whips,

When the meat is in your belly, and the boast is yet on

               your lips;

When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds

               you broke,

Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke?

No doubt but ye are the People – absolute, strong, and wise;

Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from

               your eyes.

On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the

               saving lies!

THE BROKEN MEN

For things we never mention,

    For Art misunderstood –

For excellent intention

    That did not turn to good;

From ancient tales’ renewing,

    From clouds we would not clear –

Beyond the Law’s pursuing

    We fled, and settled here.

We took no tearful leaving,

    We bade no long good-byes.

Men talked of crime and thieving,

    Men wrote of fraud and lies.

To save our injured feelings

    ’Twas time and time to go –

Behind was dock and Dartmoor,

    Ahead lay Callao!

The widow and the orphan

    That pray for ten per cent,

They clapped their trailers on us

    To spy the road we went.

They watched the foreign sailings

    (They scan the shipping still),

And that’s your Christian people

    Returning good for ill!

God bless the thoughtful islands

    Where never warrants come;

God bless the just Republics

    That give a man a home,

That ask no foolish questions,

    But set him on his feet;

And save his wife and daughters

    From the workhouse and the street!

On church and square and market

    The noonday silence falls;

You’ll hear the drowsy mutter

    Of the fountain in our halls.

Asleep amid the yuccas

    The city takes her ease –

Till twilight brings the land-wind

    To our clicking jalousies.

Day long the diamond weather,

    The high, unaltered blue –

The smell of goats and incense

    And the mule-bells tinkling through.

Day long the warder ocean

    That keeps us from our kin,

And once a month our levée

    When the English mail comes in.

You’ll find us up and waiting

    To treat you at the bar;

You’ll find us less exclusive

    Than the average English are.

We’ll meet you with our carriage,

    Too glad to show you round,

But – we do not lunch on steamers,

    For they are English ground.

We sail o’ nights to England

    And join our smiling Boards –

Our wives go in with Viscounts

    And our daughters dance with Lords,

But behind our princely doings,

    And behind each coup we make,

We feel there’s Something Waiting,

    And – we meet It when we wake.

Ah, God! One sniff of England –

    To greet our flesh and blood –

To hear the traffic slurring

    Once more through London mud!

Our towns of wasted honour –

    Our streets of lost delight!

How stands the old Lord Warden?

    Are Dover’s cliffs still white?

SUSSEX

God gave all men all earth to love,

    But since our hearts are small,

Ordained for each one spot should prove

    Belovèd over all;

That, as He watched Creation’s birth,

    So we, in godlike mood,

May of our love create our earth

    And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content,

    As one some Surrey glade,

Or one the palm-grove’s droned lament

    Before Levuka’s Trade.

Each to his choice, and I rejoice

    The lot has fallen to me

In a fair ground – in a fair ground –

    Yea, Sussex by the sea!

No tender-hearted garden crowns,

    No bosomed woods adorn

Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,

    But gnarled and writhen thorn –

Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,

    And, through the gaps revealed,

Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,

    Blue goodness of the Weald.

Clean of officious fence or hedge,

    Half-wild and wholly tame,

The wise turf cloaks the white cliff-edge

    As when the Romans came.

What sign of those that fought and died

    At shift of sword and sword?

The barrow and the camp abide,

    The sunlight and the sward.

Here leaps ashore the full Sou’west

    All heavy-winged with brine,

Here lies above the folded crest

    The Channel’s leaden line;

And here the sea-fogs lap and cling,

    And here, each warning each,

The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring

    Along the hidden beach.

We have no waters to delight

    Our broad and brookless vales –

Only the dewpond on the height

    Unfed, that never fails –

Whereby no tattered herbage tells

    Which way the season flies –

Only our close-bit thyme that smells

    Like dawn in Paradise.

Here through the strong unhampered days

    The tinkling silence thrills;

Or little, lost, Down churches praise

    The Lord who made the hills:

But here the Old Gods guard their ground,

    And, in her secret heart,

The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found

    Dreams, as she dwells, apart.

Though all the rest were all my share,

    With equal soul I’d see

Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair,

    Yet none more fair than she.

Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,

    And I will choose instead

Such lands as lie ’twixt Rake and Rye,

    Black Down and Beachy Head.

I will go out against the sun

    Where the rolled scarp retires,

And the Long Man of Wilmington

    Looks naked toward the shires;

And east till doubling Rother crawls

    To find the fickle tide,

By dry and sea-forgotten walls,

    Our ports of stranded pride.

I will go north about the shaws

    And the deep ghylls that breed

Huge oaks and old, the which we hold

    No more than ‘Sussex weed’;

Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s

    Begilded dolphin veers,

And black beside wide-bankèd Ouse

    Lie down our Sussex steers.

So to the land our hearts we give

    Till the sure magic strike,

And Memory, Use, and Love make live

    Us and our fields alike –

That deeper than our speech and thought,

    Beyond our reason’s sway,

Clay of the pit whence we were wrought

    Yearns to its fellow-clay.

God gives all men all earth to love,

    But since man’s heart is small,

Ordains for each one spot shall prove

    Belovèd over all.

Each to his choice, and I rejoice

    The lot has fallen to me

In a fair ground – in a fair ground –

    Yea, Sussex by the sea!

CHANT-PAGAN

Me that ’ave been what I’ve been –

Me that ’ave gone where I’ve gone –

Me that ’ave seen what I’ve seen –

    ’Ow can I ever take on

With awful old England again,

An’ ’ouses both sides of the street,

And ’edges two sides of the lane,

And the parson an’ ‘gentry’ between,

An’ touchin’ my ’at when we meet –

    Me that ’ave been what I’ve been?

Me that ’ave watched ’arf a world

’Eave up all shiny with dew,

Kopje on kop to the sun,

An’ as soon as the mist let ’em through

Our ’elios winkin’ like fun –

Three sides of a ninety-mile square,

Over valleys as big as a shire –

‘Are ye there? Are ye there? Are ye there?’

An’ then the blind drum of our fire …

An’ I’m rollin’ ’is lawns for the Squire,

                                                Me!

Me that ’ave rode through the dark

Forty mile often on end,

Along the Ma’ollisberg Range,

With only the stars for my mark

An’ only the night for my friend,

An’ things runnin’ off as you pass,

An’ things jumpin’ up in the grass,

An’ the silence, the shine an’ the size

Of the ‘igh, inexpressible skies –

I am takin’ some letters almost

As much as a mile, to the post,

An’ ‘mind you come back with the change!’

                                                Me!

Me that saw Barberton took

When we dropped through the clouds on their ’ead,

An’ they ’ove the guns over and fled –

Me that was through Di’mond ’Ill,

An’ Pieters an’ Springs an’ Belfast –

From Dundee to Vereeniging all!

Me that stuck out to the last

(An’ five bloomin’ bars on my chest) –

I am doin’ my Sunday-school best,

By the ’elp of the Squire an’ ’is wife

(Not to mention the ’ousemaid an’ cook),

To come in an’ ‘ands up an’ be still,

An’ honestly work for my bread,

My livin’ in that state of life

To which it shall please God to call

                                                Me!

Me that ’ave followed my trade

In the place where the lightnin’s are made;

’Twixt the Rains and the Sun and the Moon –

Me that lay down an’ got up

Three years an’ the sky for my roof –

That ’ave ridden my ’unger an’ thirst

Six thousand raw mile on the hoof,

With the Vaal and the Orange for cup,

An’ the Brandwater Basin for dish, –

Oh! it’s ’ard to be’ave as they wish

(Too ’ard, an’ a little too soon),

I’ll ’ave to think over it first –

                                                Me!

I will arise an’ get ’ence –

I will trek South and make sure

If it’s only my fancy or not

That the sunshine of England is pale,

And the breezes of England are stale,

An’ there’s somethin’ gone small with the lot,

For I know of a sun an’ a wind,

An’ some plains and a mountain be’ind,

An’ some graves by a barb-wire fence,

An’ a Dutchman I’ve fought ’oo might give

Me a job were I ever inclined

To look in an’ offsaddle an’ live

Where there’s neither a road nor a tree –

But only my Maker an’ me,

And I think it will kill me or cure,

So I think I will go there an’ see.

                                                Me!

LICHTENBERG

Smells are surer than sounds or sights

    To make your heart-strings crack –

They start those awful voices o’ nights

    That whisper, ‘Old man, come back!’

That must be why the big things pass

    And the little things remain,

Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,

    Riding in, in the rain.

There was some silly fire on the flank

    And the small wet drizzling down –

There were the sold-out shops and the bank

    And the wet, wide-open town;

And we were doing escort-duty

    To somebody’s baggage-train,

And I smelt wattle by Lichtenberg –

    Riding in, in the rain.

It was all Australia to me –

    All I had found or missed:

Every face I was crazy to see,

    And every woman I’d kissed:

All that I shouldn’t ha’ done, God knows!

    (As He knows I’ll do it again),

That smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,

    Riding in, in the rain!

And I saw Sydney the same as ever,

    The picnics and brass-bands;

And the little homestead on Hunter River

    And my new vines joining hands.

It all came over me in one act

    Quick as a shot through the brain –

With the smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,

    Riding in, in the rain.

I have forgotten a hundred fights,

    But one I shall not forget –

With the raindrops bunging up my sights

    And my eyes bunged up with wet;

And through crack and stink of the cordite,

    (Ah, Christ! My country again!)

The smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,

    Riding in, in the rain!

HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN

What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in –

But one chill bed for all to rest in,

That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,

But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you –

Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,

And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,

Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken –

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.

You steal away to the lapping waters,

And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth and talk at the tables,

The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables –

To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,

And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow

Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

‘RIMINI’

Marching Song of a Roman Legion of the Later Empire

When I left Rome for Lalage’s sake,

    By the Legions’ Road to Rimini,

She vowed her heart was mine to take

    With me and my shield to Rimini –

    (Till the Eagles flew from Rimini –)

               And I’ve tramped Britain, and I’ve tramped Gaul,

               And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall

    As white as the neck of Lalage –

    (As cold as the heart of Lalage!)

               And I’ve lost Britain and I’ve lost Gaul,

               And I’ve lost Rome and, worst of all,

                         I’ve lost Lalage!

When you go by the Via Aurelia,

As thousands have travelled before,

Remember the Luck of the Soldier

Who never saw Rome any more!

Oh, dear was the sweetheart that kissed him,

And dear was the mother that bore;

But his shield was picked up in the heather,

And he never saw Rome any more!

And he left Rome, etc.

When you go by the Via Aurelia

That runs from the City to Gaul,

Remember the Luck of the Soldier

Who rose to be master of all!

He carried the sword and the buckler,

He mounted his guard on the Wall,

Till the Legions elected him Caesar,

And he rose to be master of all!

And he left Rome, etc.

It is twenty-five marches to Narbo,

It’s forty-five more up the Rhone,

And the end may be death in the heather

Or life on an Emperor’s throne.

But whether the Eagles obey us,

Or we go to the Ravens – alone,

I’d sooner be Lalage’s lover

Than sit on an Emperor’s throne!

We’ve all left Rome for Lalage’s sake, etc.

THE SONS OF MARTHA

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have

               inherited that good part;

But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the

               careful soul and the troubled heart.

And because she lost her temper once, and because she

               was rude to the Lord, her Guest,

Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without

               end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and

               cushion the shock.

It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care

               that the switches lock.

It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care

               to embark and entrain,

Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by

               land and main.

They say to mountains, ‘Be ye removèd.’ They say to

               the lesser floods, ‘Be dry.’

Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd – they are not

               afraid of that which is high.

Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit – then is

               the bed of the deep laid bare,

That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly

               sleeping and unaware.

They finger death at their gloves’ end where they

               piece and repiece the living wires.

He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him

               hungry behind their fires

Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his

               terrible stall,

And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and

               turn him till evenfall.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till

               death is Relief afar.

They are concerned with matters hidden – under the

               earth-line their altars are:

The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn

               to restore to the mouth,

And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again

               at a city’s drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a

               little before the nuts work loose.

They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave

               their work when they dam’-well choose.

As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the

               dark and the desert they stand,

Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s

               days may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make some

               path more fair or flat –

Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha

               spilled for that!

Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness

               to any creed,

But simple service simply given to his own kind in

               their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessèd – they

               know the angels are on their side.

They know in them is the Grace confessèd, and for

               them are the Mercies multiplied.

They sit at the Feet – they hear the Word – they see

               how truly the Promise runs:

They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and –

               the Lord He lays it on Martha’s Sons!

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 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.

A SONG OF TRAVEL

Where’s the lamp that Hero lit

    Once to call Leander home?

Equal Time hath shovelled it

    ‘Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome.

Neither wait we any more

That worn sail which Argo bore.

Dust and dust of ashes close

    All the Vestal Virgins’ care;

And the oldest altar shows

    But an older darkness there.

Age-encamped Oblivion

Tenteth every light that shone.

Yet shall we, for Suns that die,

    Wall our wanderings from desire?

Or, because the Moon is high,

    Scorn to use a nearer fire?

Lest some envious Pharaoh stir,

Make our lives our sepulchre?

Nay! Though Time with petty Fate

    Prison us and Emperors,

By our Arts do we create

    That which Time himself devours –

Such machines as well may run

’Gainst the Horses of the Sun.

When we would a new abode,

    Space, our tyrant King no more,

Lays the long lance of the road

    At our feet and flees before,

Breathless, ere we overwhelm,

To submit a further realm!

THE OLDEST SONG

‘For before Eve was Lilith.’ – OLD TALE

‘These were never your true love’s eyes.

    Why do you feign that you love them?

You that broke from their constancies,

    And the wide calm brows above them!

This was never your true love’s speech.

    Why do you thrill when you hear it?

You that have ridden out of its reach

    The width of the world or near it!

This was never your true love’s hair, –

    You that chafed when it bound you

Screened from knowledge or shame or care,

    In the night that it made around you!’

‘All these things I know, I know.

    And that’s why my heart is breaking!’

‘Then what do you gain by pretending so?’

    ‘The joy of an old wound waking.’

THE POWER OF THE DOG

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy

Love unflinching that cannot lie –

Perfect passion and worship fed

By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.

Nevertheless it is hardly fair

To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits

Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,

And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs

To lethal chambers or loaded guns,

Then you will find – it’s your own affair –

But … you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone – wherever it goes – for good,

You will discover how much you care,

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,

When it comes to burying Christian clay.

Our loves are not given, but only lent,

At compound interest of cent per cent.

Though it is not always the case, I believe,

That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:

For when debts are payable, right or wrong,

A short-time loan is as bad as a long –

So why in – Heaven (before we are there)

Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

THE PUZZLER

The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,

His mental processes are plain – one knows what he

               will do,

And can logically predicate his finish by his start;

But the English – ah, the English! – they are quite

               a race apart.

Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude

               and raw.

They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;

But the straw that they were tickled with – the chaff

               that they were fed with –

They convert into a weaver’s beam to break their

               foeman’s head with.

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,

They arrive at their conclusions – largely inarticulate.

Being void of self-expression they confide their views

               to none;

But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why

               things were done.

Yes, sometimes in a smoking-room, through clouds

               of ‘Ers’ and ‘Ums’,

Obliquely and by inference, illumination comes,

On some step that they have taken, or some action

               they approve –

Embellished with the argot of the Upper Fourth Remove.

In telegraphic sentences, half swallowed at the ends,

They hint a matter’s inwardness – and there the

               matter ends.

And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,

The English – ah, the English! – don’t say anything

               at all.

NORMAN AND SAXON

‘My son,’ said the Norman Baron, ‘I am dying, and you

               will be heir

To all the broad acres in England that William gave

               me for my share

When we conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice

               little handful it is.

But before you go over to rule it I want you to

               understand this: –

‘The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are

               not so polite.

But he never means anything serious till he talks

               about justice and right.

When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his

               sullen set eyes on your own,

And grumbles, “This isn’t fair dealing,” my son, leave

               the Saxon alone.

‘You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture

               your Picardy spears;

But don’t try that game on the Saxon; you’ll have the

               whole brood round your ears.

From the richest old Thane in the county to the

               poorest chained serf in the field,

They’ll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you

               are wise, you will yield.

‘But first you must master their language, their

               dialect, proverbs and songs.

Don’t trust any clerk to interpret when they come

               with the tale of their wrongs.

Let them know that you know what they’re saying;

               let them feel that you know what to say.

Yes, even when you want to go hunting, hear ’em out

               if it takes you all day.

‘They’ll drink every hour of the daylight and poach

               every hour of the dark.

It’s the sport not the rabbits they’re after (we’ve

               plenty of game in the park).

Don’t hang them or cut off their fingers. That’s

               wasteful as well as unkind,

For a hard-bitten, South-country poacher makes the

               best man-at-arms you can find.

‘Appear with your wife and the children at their

               weddings and funerals and feasts.

Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all

               poor parish priests.

Say “we”, “us” and “ours” when you’re talking, instead

               of “you fellows” and “I”.

Don’t ride over seeds; keep your temper, and never you

               tell ’em a lie!’

SONG OF THE WISE CHILDREN

When the darkened Fifties dip to the North,

    And frost and the fog divide the air,

And the day is dead at his breaking-forth,

    Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear!

Far to Southward they wheel and glance,

    The million molten spears of morn –

The spears of our deliverance

    That shine on the house where we were born.

Flying-fish about our bows,

    Flying sea-fires in our wake:

This is the road to our Father’s House,

    Whither we go for our soul’s sake!

We have forfeited our birthright,

    We have forsaken all things meet;

We have forgotten the look of light,

    We have forgotten the scent of heat.

They that walk with shaded brows,

    Year by year in a shining land,

They be men of our Father’s House,

    They shall receive us and understand.

We shall go back by the boltless doors,

    To the life unaltered our childhood knew –

To the naked feet on the cool, dark floors,

    And the high-ceiled rooms that the Trade blows

               through:

To the trumpet-flowers and the moon beyond,

    And the tree-toad’s chorus drowning all –

And the lisp of the split banana-frond

    That talked us to sleep when we were small.

The wayside magic, the threshold spells,

    Shall soon undo what the North has done –

Because of the sights and the sounds and the smells

    That ran with our youth in the eye of the sun.

And Earth accepting shall ask no vows,

    Nor the Sea our love, nor our lover the Sky.

When we return to our Father’s House

    Only the English shall wonder why!

THE RABBI’S SONG

    2 Samuel xiv. 14

If thought can reach to Heaven,

    On Heaven let it dwell,

For fear that Thought be given

    Like power to reach to Hell.

For fear the desolation

    And darkness of thy mind

Perplex an habitation

    Which thou hast left behind.

Let nothing linger after –

    No whispering ghost remain,

In wall, or beam, or rafter,

    Of any hate or pain.

Cleanse and call home thy spirit,

    Deny her leave to cast,

On aught thy heirs inherit,

    The shadow of her past.

For think, in all thy sadness,

    What road our grief may take;

Whose brain reflect our madness,

    Or whom our terrors shake:

For think, lest any languish

    By cause of thy distress –

The arrows of our anguish

    Fly farther than we guess.

Our lives, our tears, as water,

    Are spilled upon the ground;

God giveth no man quarter,

    Yet God a means hath found,

Though faith and hope have vanished,

    And even love grows dim –

A means whereby His banished

    Be not expelled from Him!

A CHARM

Take of English earth as much

As either hand may rightly clutch.

In the taking of it breathe

Prayer for all who lie beneath –

Not the great nor well-bespoke,

But the mere uncounted folk

Of whose life and death is none

Report or lamentation.

    Lay that earth upon thy heart,

    And thy sickness shall depart!

It shall sweeten and make whole

Fevered breath and festered soul.

It shall mightily restrain

Over-busy hand and brain.

It shall ease thy mortal strife

’Gainst the immortal woe of life,

Till thyself restored shall prove

By what grace the Heavens do move.

Take of English flowers these –

Spring’s full-facèd primroses,

Summer’s wild wide-hearted rose,

Autumn’s wall-flower of the close,

And, thy darkness to illume,

Winter’s bee-thronged ivy-bloom.

Seek and serve them where they hide

From Candlemas to Christmas-tide,

    For these simples, used aright,

    Shall restore a failing sight.

These shall cleanse and purify

Webbed and inward-turning eye;

These shall show thee treasure hid

Thy familiar fields amid,

At thy threshold, on thy hearth

Or about thy daily path;

And reveal (which is thy need)

Every man a King indeed!

COLD IRON

‘Gold is for the mistress – silver for the maid –

Coffer for the craftsman cunning in his trade.’

‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall,

‘But Iron – Cold Iron – is master of them all.’

So he made rebellion ’gainst the King his liege,

Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.

‘Nay!’ said the cannoneer on the castle wall,

‘But Iron – Cold Iron – shall be master of you all!’

Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong,

When the cruel cannon-balls laid ’em all along;

He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,

And Iron – Cold Iron – was master of it all!

Yet his King spake kindly (ah, how kind a Lord!)

‘What if I release thee now and give thee back

               thy sword?’

‘Nay!’ said the Baron, ‘mock not at my fall,

For Iron – Cold Iron – is master of men all.’

‘Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown –

Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.’

‘As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,

For Iron – Cold Iron – must be master of men all!’

Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)

‘Here is Bread and here is Wine – sit and sup with me.

Eat and drink in Mary’s Name, the whiles I do recall

How Iron – Cold Iron – can be master of men all!’

He took the Wine and blessed It. He blessed and brake

               the Bread.

With His own Hands He served Them, and presently

               He said:

‘Look! These Hands they pierced with nails outside

               My city wall,

Show Iron – Cold Iron – to be master of men all.

‘Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong.

Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with

               wrong.

I forgive thy treason – I redeem thy fall –

For Iron – Cold Iron – must be master of men all!’

‘Crowns are for the valiant – sceptres for the bold!

Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take

               and hold!’

‘Nay!’ said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,

‘But Iron – Cold Iron – is master of men all!

    Iron out of Calvary is master of men all!’

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS

They shut the road through the woods

               Seventy years ago.

Weather and rain have undone it again,

               And now you would never know

There was once a road through the woods

               Before they planted the trees.

It is underneath the coppice and heath

               And the thin anemones.

Only the keeper sees

               That, where the ring-dove broods,

And the badgers roll at ease,

               There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods

               Of a summer evening late,

When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools

               Where the otter whistles his mate,

(They fear not men in the woods,

               Because they see so few).

You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,

               And the swish of a skirt in the dew,

               Steadily cantering through

The misty solitudes,

               As though they perfectly knew

The old lost road through the woods …

But there is no road through the woods.

PUCK’S SONG

See you the ferny ride that steals

    Into the oak-woods far?

O that was whence they hewed the keels

    That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the ivy clings

    To Bayham’s mouldering walls?

O there we cast the stout railings

    That stand around St Paul’s.

See you the dimpled track that runs

    All hollow through the wheat?

O that was where they hauled the guns

    That smote King Philip’s fleet!

(Out of the Weald, the secret Weald,

    Men sent in ancient years

The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field,

    The arrows at Poitiers!)

See you our little mill that clacks,

    So busy by the brook?

She has ground her corn and paid her tax

    Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak,

    And the dread ditch beside?

O that was where the Saxons broke

    On the day that Harold died!

See you the windy levels spread

    About the gates of Rye?

O that was where the Northmen fled,

    When Alfred’s ships came by!

See you our pastures wide and lone,

    Where the red oxen browse?

O there was a City thronged and known,

    Ere London boasted a house!

And see you, after rain, the trace

    Of mound and ditch and wall?

O that was a Legion’s camping-place,

    When Caesar sailed from Gaul!

And see you marks that show and fade,

    Like shadows on the Downs?

O they are the lines the Flint Men made,

    To guard their wondrous towns!

Trackway and Camp and City lost,

    Salt Marsh where now is corn:

Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,

    And so was England born!

She is not any common Earth,

    Water or Wood or Air,

But Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye,

    Where you and I will fare!

A PICT SONG

Rome never looks where she treads.

    Always her heavy hooves fall

On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;

    And Rome never heeds when we bawl.

Her sentries pass on – that is all,

    And we gather behind them in hordes,

And plot to reconquer the Wall,

    With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk – we!

    Too little to love or to hate.

Leave us alone and you’ll see

    How we can drag down the Great!

We are the worm in the wood!

    We are the rot at the root!

We are the taint in the blood!

    We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak –

    Rats gnawing cables in two –

Moths making holes in a cloak –

    How they must love what they do!

Yes – and we Little Folk too,

    We are busy as they –

Working our works out of view –

    Watch, and you’ll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,

    But we know Peoples that are.

Yes, and we’ll guide them along

    To smash and destroy you in War!

We shall be slaves just the same?

    Yes, we have always been slaves,

But you – you will die of the shame,

    And then we shall dance on your graves!

We are the Little Folk, we, etc.

MERROW DOWN

   I

There runs a road by Merrow Down –

    A grassy track to-day it is –

An hour out of Guildford town,

    Above the river Wey it is.

Here, when they heard the horse-bells ring,

    The ancient Britons dressed and rode

To watch the dark Phoenicians bring

    Their goods along the Western Road.

Yes, here, or hereabouts, they met

    To hold their racial talks and such –

To barter beads for Whitby jet,

    And tin for gay shell torques and such.

But long and long before that time

    (When bison used to roam on it)

Did Taffy and her Daddy climb

    That Down, and had their home on it.

Then beavers built in Broadstonebrook

    And made a swamp where Bramley stands;

And bears from Shere would come and look

    For Taffimai where Shamley stands.

The Wey, that Taffy called Wagai,

    Was more than six times bigger then;

And all the Tribe of Tegumai

    They cut a noble figure then!

   II

Of all the Tribe of Tegumai

    Who cut that figure, none remain, –

On Merrow Down the cuckoos cry –

    The silence and the sun remain.

But as the faithful years return

    And hearts unwounded sing again,

Comes Taffy dancing through the fern

    To lead the Surrey spring again.

Her brows are bound with bracken-fronds,

    And golden elf-locks fly above;

Her eyes are bright as diamonds

    And bluer than the sky above.

In mocassins and deer-skin cloak,

    Unfearing, free and fair she flits,

And lights her little damp-wood smoke

    To show her Daddy where she flits.

For far – oh, very far behind,

    So far she cannot call to him,

Comes Tegumai alone to find

    The daughter that was all to him!

THE RUN OF THE DOWNS

The Weald is good, the Downs are best –

I’ll give you the run of ’em, East to West.

Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,

They were once and they are still.

Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry

Go back as far as sums’ll carry.

Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,

They have looked on many a thing,

And what those two have missed between ’em,

I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ’em.

Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down

Knew Old England before the Crown.

Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood

Knew Old England before the Flood;

And when you end on the Hampshire side –

Butser’s old as Time and Tide.

    The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,

    You be glad you are Sussex born!

JUST SO VERSES

When the cabin port-holes are dark and green

    Because of the seas outside;

When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)

And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,

    And the trunks begin to slide;

When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,

And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,

And you aren’t waked or washed or dressed,

Why, then you will know (if you haven’t guessed)

You’re ‘Fifty North and Forty West!’

                                                How the Whale Got his Throat

The Camel’s hump is an ugly lump

    Which well you may see at the Zoo;

But uglier yet is the hump we get

    From having too little to do.

Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,

If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo,

    We get the hump –

    Cameelious hump –

The hump that is black and blue!

We climb out of bed with a frouzly head,

    And a snarly-yarly voice.

We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl

    At our bath and our boots and our toys;

And there ought to be a corner for me

(And I know there is one for you)

    When we get the hump –

    Cameelious hump –

The hump that is black and blue!

The cure for this ill is not to sit still,

    Or frowst with a book by the fire;

But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,

    And dig till you gently perspire;

And then you will find that the sun and the wind,

And the Djinn of the Garden too,

    Have lifted the hump –

    The horrible hump –

The hump that is black and blue!

I get it as well as you-oo-oo

    If I haven’t enough to do – oo-oo!

    We all get hump –

    Cameelious hump –

    Kiddies and grown-ups too!

                                                How the Camel Got his Hump

I am the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in most wise tones,

‘Let us melt into the landscape – just us two by our

               lones.’

People have come – in a carriage – calling. But Mummy

               is there …

Yes, I can go if you take me – Nurse says she don’t

               care,

Let’s go up to the pig-sties and sit on the farmyard rails!

Let’s say things to the bunnies, and watch ’em skitter

               their tails!

Let’s – oh, anything, daddy, so long as it’s you and me,

And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea!

Here’s your boots (I’ve brought ’em), and here’s your

               cap and stick,

And here’s your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out

               of it – quick!

                                                How the Leopard Got his Spots

I keep six honest serving-men

    (They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

    And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,

    I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me,

    I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

    For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

    For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views.

    I know a person small – She keeps ten million serving-men,

    Who get no rest at all!

She sends ’em abroad on her own affairs,

    From the second she opens her eyes –

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

    And seven million Whys!

                                                The Elephant’s Child

This is the mouth-filling song

Of the race that was run by a Boomer.

Run in a single burst – only event of its kind –

Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma,

Old Man Kangaroo first: Yellow-Dog Dingo behind.

Kangaroo bounded away,

His back-legs working like pistons –

Bounded from morning till dark,

Twenty-five feet at a bound.

Yellow-Dog Dingo lay

Like a yellow cloud in the distance –

Much too busy to bark.

My! but they covered the ground!

Nobody knows where they went,

Or followed the track that they flew in,

For that Continent

Hadn’t been given a name.

They ran thirty degrees,

From Torres Straits to the Leeuwin

(Look at the Atlas, please),

And they ran back as they came.

S’posing you could trot

From Adelaide to the Pacific,

For an afternoon’s run –

Half what these gentlemen did –

You would feel rather hot,

But your legs would develop terrific –

Yes, my importunate son,

You’d be a Marvellous Kid!

                                                The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo

I’ve never sailed the Amazon,

    I’ve never reached Brazil;

But the Don and Magdalena,

    They can go there when they will!

               Yes, weekly from Southampton,

               Great steamers, white and gold,

               Go rolling down to Rio

               (Roll down – roll down to Rio!).

               And I’d like to roll to Rio

               Some day before I’m old!

I’ve never seen a Jaguar,

    Nor yet an Armadill-

O dilloing in his armour,

    And I s’pose I never will,

               Unless I go to Rio

               These wonders to behold – Roll down – roll down to Rio – Roll really down to Rio!

               Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio

               Some day before I’m old!

                                                The Beginning of the Armadilloes

China-going P. & O.’s

Pass Pau Amma’s playground close,

And his Pusat Tasek lies

Near the track of most B.I.’s.

N.Y.K. and N.D.L.

Know Pau Amma’s home as well

As the Fisher of the Sea knows

‘Bens’, M.M.’s and Rubattinos.

But (and this is rather queer)

A.T.L.’s can not come here;

O. and O. and D.O.A.

Must go round another way

Orient, Anchor, Bibby, Hall,

Never go that way at all.

U.C.S. would have a fit

If it found itself on it.

And if ‘Beavers’ took their cargoes

To Penang instead of Lagos,

Or a fat Shaw-Savill bore

Passengers to Singapore,

Or a White Star were to try a

Little trip to Sourabaya,

Or a B.S.A. went on

Past Natal to Cheribon,

Then great Mr Lloyds would come

With a wire and drag them home!

You’ll know what my riddle means

When you’ve eaten mangosteens.

                                                The Crab that Played with the Sea

Pussy can sit by the fire and sing,

    Pussy can climb a tree,

Or play with a silly old cork and string

    To ’muse herself, not me.

But I like Binkie my dog, because

    He knows how to behave;

So, Binkie’s the same as the First Friend was,

    And I am the Man in the Cave!

Pussy will play Man-Friday till

    It’s time to wet her paw

And make her walk on the window-sill

    (For the footprint Crusoe saw);

Then she fluffles her tail and mews,

    And scratches and won’t attend,

But Binkie will play whatever I choose,

    And he is my true First Friend!

Pussy will rub my knees with her head

    Pretending she loves me hard;

But the very minute I go to my bed

    Pussy runs out in the yard,

And there she stays till the morning-light;

    So I know it is only pretend;

But Binkie, he snores at my feet all night,

    And he is my Firstest Friend!

                                                The Cat that Walked by Himself

This Uninhabited Island

    Is off Cape Gardafui;

By the beaches of Socotra

    And the pink Arabian Sea.

But it’s hot – too hot – from Suez

    For the likes of you and me

               Ever to go

               In a P. & O.

    To call on the Cake Parsee.

                                                How the Rhinoceros got his Skin

There was never a Queen like Balkis,

    From here to the wide world’s end;

But Balkis talked to a butterfly

    As you would talk to a friend.

There was never a King like Solomon,

    Not since the world began;

But Solomon talked to a butterfly

    As a man would talk to a man.

She was Queen of Sabaea –

    And he was Asia’s Lord –

But they both of ’em talked to butterflies

    When they took their walks abroad!

                                                The Butterfly that Stamped

THE TWO COUSINS

Valour and Innocence

Have latterly gone hence

To certain death by certain shame attended.

Envy – ah! even to tears! –

The fortune of their years

Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.

Scarce had they lifted up

Life’s full and fiery cup,

Than they had set it down untouched before them.

Before their day arose

They beckoned it to close –

Close in confusion and destruction o’er them.

They did not stay to ask

What prize should crown their task –

Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;

But passed into eclipse,

Her kiss upon their lips –

Even Belphoebe’s, whom they gave their lives for!

‘CITIES AND THRONES AND POWERS’

Cities and Thrones and Powers

    Stand in Time’s eye,

Almost as long as flowers,

    Which daily die:

But, as new buds put forth

    To glad new men,

Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth

    The Cities rise again.

This season’s Daffodil,

    She never hears

What change, what chance, what chill,

    Cut down last year’s;

But with bold countenance,

    And knowledge small,

Esteems her seven days’ continuance

    To be perpetual.

So Time that is o’er-kind

    To all that be,

Ordains us e’en as blind,

    As bold as she:

That in our very death,

    And burial sure,

Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,

    ‘See how our works endure!’

IF –

If you can keep your head when all about you

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

    If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

    Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

    And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

‘OUR FATHERS OF OLD’

Excellent herbs had our fathers of old –

    Excellent herbs to ease their pain –

Alexanders and Marigold,

    Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane –

Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue,

    (Almost singing themselves they run)

Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you –

    Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun,

               Anything green that grew out of the mould

               Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old.

Wonderful tales had our fathers of old,

    Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars –

The Sun was Lord of the Marigold,

    Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars.

Pat as a sum in division it goes –

    (Every herb had a planet bespoke) –

Who but Venus should govern the Rose?

    Who but Jupiter own the Oak?

               Simply and gravely the facts are told

               In the wonderful books of our fathers of old.

Wonderful little, when all is said,

    Wonderful little our fathers knew.

Half their remedies cured you dead –

    Most of their teaching was quite untrue –

‘Look at the stars when a patient is ill

    (Dirt has nothing to do with disease),

Bleed and blister as much as you will,

    Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.’

               Whence enormous and manifold

               Errors were made by our fathers of old.

Yet when the sickness was sore in the land,

    And neither planets nor herbs assuaged,

They took their lives in their lancet-hand

    And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged!

Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door –

    Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled!

Excellent courage our fathers bore –

    Excellent heart had our fathers of old.

               None too learned, but nobly bold

               Into the fight went our fathers of old.

If it be certain, as Galen says –

    And sage Hippocrates holds as much –

‘That those afflicted by doubts and dismays

    Are mightily helped by a dead man’s touch,’

Then, be good to us, stars above!

    Then, be good to us, herbs below!

We are afflicted by what we can prove,

    We are distracted by what we know.

                  So – ah, so!

               Down from your heaven or up from your mould,

               Send us the hearts of our fathers of old!

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in

               his pride,

He shouts to scare the monster, who will often

               turn aside.

But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth

               and nail.

For the female of the species is more deadly than

               the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot

               of man,

He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it as

               he can.

But his mate makes no such motion where she camps

               beside the trail.

For the female of the species is more deadly than

               the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and

               Choctaws,

They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of

               the squaws.

’Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark

               enthusiasts pale.

For the female of the species is more deadly than

               the male.

Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must

               not say,

For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give

               away;

But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms

               the other’s tale –

The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations – worm and savage

               otherwise, –

Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the

               compromise.

Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact

To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the

               wicked low,

To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.

Mirth obscene diverts his anger! Doubt and Pity

               oft perplex

Him in dealing with an issue – to the scandal of

               The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of

               her frame

Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and

               engined for the same;

And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,

The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath

               her breast

May not deal in doubt or pity – must not swerve for

               fact or jest.

These be purely male diversions – not in these her

               honour dwells.

She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and

               nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that

               make her great

As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of

               the Mate!

And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides

               unclaimed to claim

Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is

               the same.

She is wedded to convictions – in default of

               grosser ties;

Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him

               who denies! –

He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant,

               white-hot, wild,

Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse

               and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges – even so the

               she-bear fights,

Speech that drips, corrodes and poisons – even so the

               cobra bites,

Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw

And the victim writhes in anguish – like the Jesuit

               with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers

               to confer

With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a

               place for her

Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his

               erring hands

To some God of Abstract Justice – which no woman

               understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman

               that God gave him

Must command but may not govern – shall enthral

               but not enslave him.

And She knows, because She warns him, and Her

               instincts never fail,

That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than

               the Male.

THE ROMAN CENTURION’S SONG

Legate, I had the news last night – my cohort

               ordered home

By ship to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.

I’ve watched the companies aboard, the arms are

               stowed below:

Now let another take my sword. Command me not

               to go!

I’ve served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to

               the Wall.

I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.

Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour

               draws near

That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.

Here where men say my name was made, here where

               my work was done;

Here where my dearest dead are laid – my wife – my

               wife and son;

Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory,

               service, love,

Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how shall

               I remove?

For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and

               fields suffice.

What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful

               Northern skies,

Black with December snows unshed or pearled with

               August haze –

The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June’s

               long-lighted days?

You’ll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and

               olive lean

Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps

               Nemausus clean

To Arelate’s triple gate; but let me linger on,

Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront

               Euroclydon!

You’ll take the old Aurelian Road through

               shore-descending pines

Where, blue as any peacock’s neck, the Tyrrhene

               Ocean shines.

You’ll go where laurel crowns are won, but – will you

               e’er forget

The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in

               the wet?

Let me work here for Britain’s sake – at any task

               you will –

A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops

               to drill.

Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite

               Border keep,

Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old

               messmates sleep.

Legate, I come to you in tears – My cohort ordered

               home!

I’ve served in Britain forty years. What should I do

               in Rome?

Here is my heart, my soul, my mind – the only life

               I know.

I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

DANE-GELD

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

    To call upon a neighbour and to say: –

‘We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared

               to fight,

    Unless you pay us cash to go away.’

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

    And the people who ask it explain

That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld

    And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,

    To puff and look important and to say: –

‘Though we know we should defeat you, we have not

               the time to meet you.

    We will therefore pay you cash to go away.’

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

    But we’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

    You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

    For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

    You will find it better policy to say: –

‘We never pay any-one Dane-Geld,

    No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

    And the nation that plays it is lost!’

THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,

With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;

But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets

               the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin

red wall,

You find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the

               heart of all;

The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and

               the tanks,

The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows

               and the planks.

And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and

               ’prentice boys

Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;

For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to

               scare the birds,

The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,

And some are hardly fit to trust with anything

               that grows;

But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand

               and loam,

For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are

               not made

By singing – ‘Oh how beautiful!’ and sitting in

               the shade,

While better men than we go out and start their

               working lives

At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken

               dinner-knives.

There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head

               so thick,

There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart

               so sick,

But it can find some needful job that’s crying to

               be done,

For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till

               further orders,

If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs

               on borders;

And when your back stops aching and your hands

               begin to harden,

You will find yourself a partner in the Glory

               of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon

               his knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your

               hands and pray

For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

‘FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE’

For all we have and are,

For all our children’s fate,

Stand up and take the war,

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away,

In wantonness o’erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day

But steel and fire and stone!

    Though all we knew depart,

    The Old Commandments stand: –

    ‘In courage keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand.’

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old: – ‘No law except the Sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled.’

Once more it knits mankind,

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight,

The ages’ slow-bought gain,

They shrivelled in a night.

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

    Though all we made depart

    The old Commandments stand: –

    ‘In patience keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand.’

No easy hope or lies

Shall bring us to our goal,

But iron sacrifice

Of body, will, and soul.

There is but one task for all – One life for each to give.

Who stands if Freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

‘THE TRADE’

They bear, in place of classic names,

    Letters and numbers on their skin.

They play their grisly blindfold games

    In little boxes made of tin.

    Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,

Sometimes they learn where mines are laid,

    Or where the Baltic ice is thin.

That is the custom of ‘The Trade’.

Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.

    They seldom tow their targets in.

They follow certain secret aims

    Down under, far from strife or din.

    When they are ready to begin

No flag is flown, no fuss is made

    More than the shearing of a pin.

That is the custom of ‘The Trade’.

The Scout’s quadruple funnel flames

    A mark from Sweden to the Swin,

The Cruiser’s thund’rous screw proclaims

    Her comings out and goings in:

    But only whiffs of paraffin

Or creamy rings that fizz and fade

    Show where the one-eyed Death has been.

That is the custom of ‘The Trade’.

Their feats, their fortunes and their fames

    Are hidden from their nearest kin;

No eager public backs or blames,

    No journal prints the yarn they spin

    (The Censor would not let it in!)

When they return from run or raid.

    Unheard they work, unseen they win.

That is the custom of ‘The Trade’.

THE QUESTION

Brethren, how shall it fare with me

    When the war is laid aside,

If it be proven that I am he

    For whom a world has died?

If it be proven that all my good,

    And the greater good I will make,

Were purchased me by a multitude

    Who suffered for my sake?

That I was delivered by mere mankind

    Vowed to one sacrifice,

And not, as I hold them, battle-blind,

    But dying with opened eyes?

That they did not ask me to draw the sword

    When they stood to endure their lot –

That they only looked to me for a word,

    And I answered I knew them not?

If it be found, when the battle clears,

    Their death has set me free,

Then how shall I live with myself through the years

    Which they have bought for me?

Brethren, how must it fare with me,

    Or how am I justified,

If it be proven that I am he

    For whom mankind has died;

If it be proven that I am he

    Who being questioned denied?

MY BOY JACK

‘Have you news of my boy Jack?’

    Not this tide.

‘When d’you think that he’ll come back?’

    Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

‘Has any one else had word of him?’

    Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim,

    Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

‘Oh, dear, what comfort can I find!’

    None this tide,

    Nor any tide,

Except he did not shame his kind –

    Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,

    This tide,

    And every tide;

Because he was the son you bore,

    And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

MESOPOTAMIA

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,

    The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:

But the men who left them thriftily to die in their

               own dung,

    Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain

    In sight of help denied from day to day:

But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in

               their pain,

    Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night

               divide –

    Never while the bars of sunset hold.

But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while

               they died,

    Shall they thrust for high employment as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?

    When the storm is ended shall we find

How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back

               to power

    By the favour and contrivance of their kind?

Even while they soothe us, while they promise large

               amends,

    Even while they make a show of fear,

Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with

               their friends,

    To confirm and re-establish each career?

Their lives cannot repay us – their death could

               not undo –

    The shame that they have laid upon our race.

But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance

               that slew,

    Shall we leave it unabated in its place?

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 grey 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 HOLY WAR

‘For here lay the excellent wisdom of him that built Mansoul, that the walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty adverse potentate unless the townsmen gave consent thereto.’

– BUNYAN’S Holy War

    A Tinker out of Bedford,

               A vagrant oft in quod,

    A private under Fairfax,

               A minister of God –

    Two hundred years and thirty

               Ere Armageddon came

    His single hand portrayed it,

               And Bunyan was his name!

He mapped for those who follow,

    The world in which we are –

‘This famous town of Mansoul’

    That takes the Holy War.

Her true and traitor people,

    The gates along her wall,

From Eye Gate unto Feel Gate,

    John Bunyan showed them all.

All enemy divisions,

    Recruits of every class,

And highly-screened positions

    For flame or poison-gas;

The craft that we call modern,

    The crimes that we call new,

John Bunyan had ’em typed and filed

    In Sixteen Eighty-two.

Likewise the Lords of Looseness

    That hamper faith and works,

The Perseverance-Doubters,

    And Present-Comfort shirks,

With brittle intellectuals

    Who crack beneath a strain –

John Bunyan met that helpful set

    In Charles the Second’s reign.

Emmanuel’s vanguard dying

    For right and not for rights,

My Lord Apollyon lying

    To the State-kept Stockholmites,

The Pope, the swithering Neutrals,

    The Kaiser and his Gott –

Their rôles, their goals, their naked souls –

    He knew and drew the lot.

Now he hath left his quarters,

    In Bunhill Fields to lie,

The wisdom that he taught us

    Is proven prophecy –

One watchword through our armies

    One answer from our lands: –

‘No dealings with Diabolus

    As long as Mansoul stands!’

A pedlar from a hovel,

    The lowest of the low –

The father of the Novel,

    Salvation’s first Defoe –

Eight blinded generations

    Ere Armageddon came,

He showed us how to meet it,

    And Bunyan was his name!

JOBSON’S AMEN

‘Blessèd be the English and all their ways and works.

Cursèd be the Infidels, Hereticks, and Turks!’

‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ‘but where I used to lie

Was neither Candle, Bell nor Book to curse my

               brethren by,

‘But a palm-tree in full bearing, bowing down,

               bowing down,

To a surf that drove unsparing at the brown-

               walled town –

Conches in a temple, oil-lamps in a dome –

And a low moon out of Africa said: “This way home!” ’

‘Blessèd be the English and all that they profess.

Cursèd be the Savages that prance in nakedness!’

‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ‘but where I used to lie

Was neither shirt nor pantaloons to catch my

               brethren by:

‘But a well-wheel slowly creaking, going round,

               going round,

By a water-channel leaking over drowned, warm

               ground –

Parrots very busy in the trellised pepper-vine

– And a high sun over Asia shouting: “Rise and shine!” ’

‘Blessèd be the English and everything they own.

Cursèd be the Infidels that bow to wood and stone!’

‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ‘but where I used to lie

Was neither pew nor Gospelleer to save my

               brethren by:

‘But a desert stretched and stricken, left and right, left

               and right,

Where the piled mirages thicken under white-hot

               light –

A skull beneath a sand-hill and a viper coiled inside –

And a red wind out of Libya roaring: “Run and hide!” ’

‘Blessèd be the English and all they make or do.

Cursèd be the Hereticks who doubt that this is true!’

‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ‘but where I mean to die

Is neither rule nor calliper to judge the matter by:

‘But Himàlya heavenward-heading, sheer and vast,

               sheer and vast,

In a million summits bedding on the last world’s past –

A certain sacred mountain where the scented cedars

               climb,

And – the feet of my Belovèd hurrying back through

               Time!’

THE FABULISTS

When all the world would have a matter hid,

    Since Truth is seldom friend to any crowd,

Men write in fable, as old Aesop did,

    Jesting at that which none will name aloud.

And this they needs must do, or it will fall

Unless they please they are not heard at all.

When desperate Folly daily laboureth

    To work confusion upon all we have,

When diligent Sloth demandeth Freedom’s death,

And banded Fear commandeth Honour’s grave –

Even in that certain hour before the fall,

Unless men please they are not heard at all.

Needs must all please, yet some not all for need,

    Needs must all toil, yet some not all for gain,

But that men taking pleasure may take heed,

    Whom present toil shall snatch from later pain.

Thus some have toiled, but their reward was small

Since, though they pleased, they were not heard at all.

This was the lock that lay upon our lips,

    This was the yoke that we have undergone,

Denying us all pleasant fellowships

    As in our time and generation.

Our pleasures unpursued age past recall,

And for our pains – we are not heard at all.

What man hears aught except the groaning guns?

    What man heeds aught save what each instant brings?

When each man’s life all imaged life outruns,

    What man shall pleasure in imaginings?

So it hath fallen, as it was bound to fall,

We are not, nor we were not, heard at all.

JUSTICE

Across a world where all men grieve

    And grieving strive the more,

The great days range like tides and leave

    Our dead on every shore.

Heavy the load we undergo,

    And our own hands prepare,

If we have parley with the foe,

    The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word

    That bids new worlds to birth,

Needs must we loosen first the sword

    Of justice upon earth;

Or else all else is vain

    Since life on earth began,

And the spent world sinks back again

    Hopeless of God and Man.

A People and their King

    Through ancient sin grown strong,

Because they feared no reckoning

    Would set no bound to wrong;

But now their hour is past,

    And we who bore it find

Evil Incarnate held at last

    To answer to mankind.

For agony and spoil

    Of nations beat to dust,

For poisoned air and tortured soil

    And cold, commanded lust,

And every secret woe

    The shuddering waters saw –

Willed and fulfilled by high and low –

    Let them relearn the Law:

That when the dooms are read,

    Not high nor low shall say: –

‘My haughty or my humble head

    Has saved me in this day.’

That, till the end of time,

    Their remnant shall recall

Their fathers’ old, confederate crime

    Availed them not at all:

That neither schools nor priests,

    Nor Kings may build again

A people with the heart of beasts

    Made wise concerning men.

Whereby our dead shall sleep

    In honour, unbetrayed,

And we in faith and honour keep

    That peace for which they paid.

THE HYAENAS

After the burial-parties leave

    And the baffled kites have fled;

The wise hyaenas come out at eve

    To take account of our dead.

How he died and why he died

    Troubles them not a whit.

They snout the bushes and stones aside

    And dig till they come to it.

They are only resolute they shall eat

    That they and their mates may thrive,

And they know that the dead are safer meat

    Than the weakest thing alive.

(For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting,

    And a child will sometimes stand;

But a poor dead soldier of the King

    Can never lift a hand.)

They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt

    Until their tushes white

Take good hold in the Army shirt,

    And tug the corpse to light.

And the pitiful face is shewn again

    For an instant ere they close;

But it is not discovered to living men –

    Only to God and to those

Who, being soulless, are free from shame,

    Whatever meat they may find.

Nor do they defile the dead man’s name –

    That is reserved for his kind.

GEHAZI

Whence comest thou, Gehazi,

    So reverend to behold,

In scarlet and in ermines

    And chain of England’s gold?

‘From following after Naaman

    To tell him all is well,

Whereby my zeal hath made me

    A Judge in Israel.’

Well done, well done, Gehazi!

    Stretch forth thy ready hand.

Thou barely ’scaped from judgment,

    Take oath to judge the land,

Unswayed by gift of money

    Or privy bribe, more base,

Of knowledge which is profit

    In any market-place.

Search out and probe, Gehazi,

    As thou of all canst try,

The truthful, well-weighed answer

    That tells the blacker lie –

The loud, uneasy virtue,

    The anger feigned at will,

To overbear a witness

    And make the Court keep still.

Take order now, Gehazi,

    That no man talk aside

In secret with his judges

    The while his case is tried.

Lest he should show them – reason

    To keep a matter hid,

And subtly lead the questions

    Away from what he did.

Thou minor of uprightness,

    What ails thee at thy vows?

What means the risen whiteness

    Of the skin between thy brows?

The boils that shine and burrow,

    The sores that slough and bleed –

The leprosy of Naaman

    On thee and all thy seed?

Stand up, stand up, Gehazi,

    Draw close thy robe and go,

Gehazi, Judge in Israel,

    A leper white as snow!

EN-DOR

‘Behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor.’ – I ISAMUEL xxviii.7

The road to En-dor is easy to tread

    For Mother or yearning Wife.

There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead

    As they were even in life.

Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store

For desolate hearts on the road to En-dor.

Whispers shall comfort us out of the dark –

    Hands – ah, God! – that we knew!

Visions and voices – look and heark! –

    Shall prove that our tale is true,

And that those who have passed to the further shore

May be hailed – at a price – on the road to En-dor.

But they are so deep in their new eclipse

    Nothing they can say can reach,

Unless it be uttered by alien lips

    And framed in a stranger’s speech.

The son must send word to the mother that bore,

Through an hireling’s mouth. ’Tis the rule of En-dor.

And not for nothing these gifts are shown

    By such as delight our dead.

They must twitch and stiffen and slaver and groan

    Ere the eyes are set in the head,

And the voice from the belly begins. Therefore,

We pay them a wage where they ply at En-dor.

Even so, we have need of faith

    And patience to follow the clue.

Often, at first, what the dear one saith

    Is babble, or jest, or untrue.

(Lying spirits perplex us sore

Till our loves – and their lives – are well known

               at En-dor) …

Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road

    And the craziest road of all!

Straight it runs to the Witch’s abode,

    As it did in the days of Saul,

And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store

For such as go down on the road to En-dor!

GETHSEMANE

The Garden called Gethsemane

    In Picardy it was,

And there the people came to see

    The English soldiers pass.

We used to pass – we used to pass

    Or halt, as it might be,

And ship our masks in case of gas

    Beyond Gethsemane.

The Garden called Gethsemane

    It held a pretty lass,

But all the time she talked to me

    I prayed my cup might pass.

The officer sat on the chair,

    The men lay on the grass,

And all the time we halted there

    I prayed my cup might pass.

It didn’t pass –

    it didn’t pass –

It didn’t pass from me.

I drank it when we met the gas

    Beyond Gethsemane!

THE CRAFTSMAN

Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,

He to the overbearing Boanerges

Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,

               Blessed be the vintage!)

Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,

He had made sure of his very Cleopatra

Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning

               Love for a tinker.

How, while he hid from Sir Thomas’s keepers,

Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight

Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet

               Rail at the dawning.

How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens

Winced at the business; whereupon his sister –

Lady Macbeth aged seven – thrust ’em under,

               Sombrely scornful.

How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate –

She being known since her birth to the townsfolk –

Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon

               Dripping Ophelia.

So, with a thin third finger marrying

Drop to wine-drop domed on the table,

Shakespeare opened his heart till sunrise

               Entered to hear him.

London waked and he, imperturbable,

Passed from waking to hurry after shadows …

Busied upon shows of no earthly importance?

               Yes, but he knew it!

THE BENEFACTORS

Ah! What avails the classic bent

    And what the chosen word,

Against the undoctored incident

    That actually occurred?

And what is Art whereto we press

    Through paint and prose and rhyme –

When Nature in her nakedness

    Defeats us every time?

It is not learning, grace nor gear,

    Nor easy meat and drink,

But bitter pinch of pain and fear

    That makes creation think.

When in this world’s unpleasing youth

    Our godlike race began,

The longest arm, the sharpest tooth,

    Gave man control of man;

Till, bruised and bitten to the bone

    And taught by pain and fear,

He learned to deal the far-off stone,

    And poke the long, safe spear.

So tooth and nail were obsolete

    As means against a foe,

Till, bored by uniform defeat,

    Some genius built the bow.

Then stone and javelin proved as vain

    As old-time tooth and nail;

Till, spurred anew by fear and pain,

    Man fashioned coats of mail.

Then there was safety for the rich

    And danger for the poor,

Till someone mixed a powder which

    Redressed the scale once more.

Helmet and armour disappeared

    With sword and bow and pike,

And, when the smoke of battle cleared,

    All men were armed alike …

And when ten million such were slain

    To please one crazy king,

Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain,

    Grew weary of the thing;

And, at the very hour designed

    To enslave him past recall,

His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy-mind

    Turned and abolished all.

All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob

    Whose head has grown too large,

Ends by destroying its own job

    And works its own discharge;

And Man, whose mere necessities

    Move all things from his path,

Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,

    And deprecates their wrath!

NATURAL THEOLOGY

PRIMITIVE

I ate my fill of a whale that died

    And stranded after a month at sea …

There is a pain in my inside.

    Why have the Gods afflicted me?

Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!

    Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!

What is the sense of Religion and Faith?

    Look how the Gods have afflicted me!

PAGAN

How can the skin of a rat or mouse hold

    Anything more than a harmless flea? …

The burning plague has taken my household.

    Why have my Gods afflicted me?

All my kith and kin are deceased,

    Though they were as good as good could be.

I will out and batter the family priest,

    Because my Gods have afflicted me!

MEDIAEVAL

My privy and well drain into each other

    After the custom of Christendie …

Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.

    Why has the Lord afflicted me?

The Saints are helpless for all I offer –

    So are the clergy I used to fee.

Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,

    Because the Lord has afflicted me.

MATERIAL

I run eight hundred hens to the acre.

    They die by dozens mysteriously …

I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker.

    Why has the Lord afflicted me?

What a return for all my endeavour –

    Not to mention the £ s d!

I am an atheist now and for ever,

    Because this God has afflicted me!

PROGRESSIVE

Money spent on an Army or Fleet

    Is homicidal lunacy …

My son has been killed in the Mons retreat.

    Why is the Lord afflicting me?

Why are murder, pillage and arson

    And rape allowed by the Deity?

I will write to the Times, deriding our parson

    Because my God has afflicted me.

CHORUS

We had a kettle: we let it leak:

    Our not repairing it made it worse.

We haven’t had any tea for a week …

    The bottom is out of the Universe!

CONCLUSION

This was none of the good Lord’s pleasure,

    For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;

But what comes after is measure for measure,

    And not a God that afflicteth thee.

As was the sowing so the reaping

    Is now and evermore shall be.

Thou art delivered to thy own keeping.

    Only thyself hath afflicted thee!

A DEATH-BED

‘This is the State above the Law

    The State exists for the State alone.’

[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,

    And an answering lump by the collar-bone.]

Some die shouting in gas or fire;

    Some die silent, by shell and shot.

Some die desperate, caught on the wire;

    Some die suddenly. This will not.

‘Regis suprema voluntas Lex’

    [It will follow the regular course of – throats.]

Some die pinned by the broken decks,

    Some die sobbing beneath the boats.

Some die eloquent, pressed to death

    By the sliding trench, as their friends can hear.

Some die wholly in half a breath.

    Some – give trouble for half a year.

‘There is neither Evil nor Good in life,

    Except as the needs of the State ordain.’

[Since it is rather too late for the knife,

    All we can do is to mask the pain.]

Some die saintly in faith and hope –

    One died thus in a prison-yard –

Some die broken by rape or the rope;

    Some die easily. This dies hard.

‘I will dash to pieces who bar my way,

    Woe to the traitor! Woe to the weak!’

[Let him write what he wishes to say.

    It tires him out if he tries to speak.]

Some die quietly. Some abound

    In loud self-pity. Others spread

Bad morale through the cots around …

    This is a type that is better dead.

‘The war was forced on me by my foes.

    All that I sought was the right to live.’

[Don’t be afraid of a triple dose;

    The pain will neutralize half we give.]

Here are the needles. See that he dies

    While the effects of the drug endure …

What is the question he asks with his eyes?

    Yes, All-Highest, to God, be sure.]

EPITAPHS OF THE WAR

‘EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE’

A. ‘I was a “have”.’ B. ‘I was a “have-not”.’

    (Together).