Thomas of the Light Heart


FACING the guns, he jokes as well   
    As any Judge upon the Bench;   
Between the crash of shell and shell   
    His laughter rings along the trench;   
He seems immensely tickled by a            
Projectile which he calls a “Black Maria.”   

He whistles down the day-long road,   
    And, when the chilly shadows fall   
And heavier hangs the weary load,   
    Is he down-hearted? Not at all.            
’T is then he takes a light and airy   
View of the tedious route to Tipperary.   

His songs are not exactly hymns;   
    He never learned them in the choir;   
And yet they brace his dragging limbs            
    Although they miss the sacred fire;   
Although his choice and cherished gems   
Do not include “The Watch upon the Thames.”   

He takes to fighting as a game;   
    He does no talking, through his hat,            
Of holy missions; all the same   
    He has his faith—be sure of that;   
He’ll not disgrace his sporting breed,   
Nor play what is n’t cricket. There’s his creed.

 
By Owen Seaman

HMS Kilmeny

A Song of the Trawlers


DARK, dark lay the drifters, against the red west,   
  As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;   
And the oily green waters were rocking to rest   
  When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide.   
And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,            
  For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.   
It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,   
  And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.   

She’d a gun at her bow that was Newcastle’s best,   
  And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,            
And a secret her skipper had never confessed,   
  Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride;   
And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome,   
  The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.   
O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home,            
  But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.   

It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest,   
  With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;   
But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast;   
  And “Well done, Kilmeny!” the admiral cried.            
Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come,   
  And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;   
But late in the evening Kilmeny came home,   
  And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.   

There’s a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,           
  Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen,   
Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home,   
  And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

Alfred Noyes

The Mobilization in Brittany


I
IT was silent in the street.   
I did not know until a woman told me,   
Sobbing over the muslin she sold me.   
Then I went out and walked to the square   
And saw a few dazed people standing there.            

And then the drums beat, the drums beat!   
O then the drums beat!   
And hurrying, stumbling through the street   
Came the hurrying stumbling feet.   
O I have heard the drums beat            
For war! 
  
I have heard the townsfolk come,   
I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum   
As the drummer stopped and cried, “Hear!   
Be strong! The summons comes! Prepare!”            
Closing he prayed us to be calm …   

And there was calm in my heart of the desert, of the dead sea,   
Of vast plains of the West before the coming storm,   
And there was calm in their eyes like the last calm that shall be.   

And then the drum beat,            
The fatal drum beat,   
And the drummer marched through the street   
And down to another square,   
And the drummer above took up the beat   
And sent it onward where            
Huddled, we stood and heard the drums roll,   
And then a bell began to toll.   

O I have heard the thunder of drums   
Crashing into simple poor homes.   
I have heard the drums roll “Farewell!”            
I have heard the tolling cathedral bell.   
Will it ever peal again?   
Shall I ever smile or feel again?   
What was joy? What was pain?   

For I have heard the drums beat,            
I have seen the drummer striding from street to street,   
Crying, “Be strong! Hear what I must tell!”   
While the drums roared and rolled and beat   
For war!   

II
Last night the men of this region were leaving. Now they are far.            
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.   
So this is the way of war …   

The train was full and we all shouted as it pulled away.   
They sang an old war-song, they were true to themselves, they were gay!   
We might have thought they were going for a holiday—            

Except for something in the air,   
Except for the weeping of the ruddy old women of Finistère.   
The younger women do not weep. They dream and stare.   

They seem to be walking in dreams. They seem not to know   
It is their homes, their happiness, vanishing so.            
(Every strong man between twenty and forty must go.)   

They sang an old war-song. I have heard it often in other days,   
But never before when War was walking the world’s highways.   
They sang, they shouted, the Marseillaise!   

The train went and another has gone, but none, coming, has brought word.            
Though you may know, you, out in the world, we have not heard,   
We are not sure that the great battalions have stirred—   

Except for something, something in the air,   
Except for the weeping of the wild old women of Finistère.   
How long will the others dream and stare?            

The train went. The strong men of this region are all away, afar.   
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.   
So this is the way of war …


 Grace Fallow Norton

The Superman


THE HORROR-HAUNTED Belgian plains riven by shot and shell   
Are strewn with her undaunted sons who stayed the jaws of hell.   
In every sunny vale of France death is the countersign.   
The purest blood in Britain’s veins is being poured like wine.   

Far, far across the crimsoned map the impassioned armies sweep.            
Destruction flashes down the sky and penetrates the deep.   
The Dreadnought knows the silent dread, and seas incarnadine   
Attest the carnival of strife, the madman’s battle scene.   

Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns press   
Where terror simulates disdain and danger is largess,            
Where greedy youth claims death for bride and agony seems bliss.   
It is the cause, the cause, my soul! which sanctifies all this.   

Ride, Cossacks, ride! Charge, Turcos, charge! The fateful hour has come.   
Let all the guns of Britain roar or be forever dumb.   
The Superman has burst his bonds. With Kultur-flag unfurled            
And prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world.”   

The impious creed that might is right in him personified   
Bids all creation bend before the insatiate Teuton pride,   
Which, nourished on Valhalla dreams of empire unconfined,   
Would make the cannon and the sword the despots of mankind.            

Efficient, thorough, strong, and brave—his vision is to kill.   
Force is the hearthstone of his might, the pole-star of his will.   
His forges glow malevolent: their minions never tire   
To deck the goddess of his lust whose twins are blood and fire.   

O world grown sick with butchery and manifold distress!            
O broken Belgium robbed of all save grief and ghastliness!   
Should Prussian power enslave the world and arrogance prevail,   
Let chaos come, let Moloch rule, and Christ give place to Baal.

Robert Grant

The Toy Band

A Song of the Great Retreat


DREARY lay the long road, dreary lay the town,   
  Lights out and never a glint o’ moon:   
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down,   
  Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon.   
“Oh! if I’d a drum here to make them take the road again,            
  Oh! if I’d a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come!   
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,   
  Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!   

“Hey, but here’s a toy shop, here’s a drum for me,   
  Penny whistles too to play the tune!            
Half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see   
  We’re a band!” said the weary big Dragoon.   
“Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,   
  Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!   
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,            
  Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!”   

Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night,   
  Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat:   
Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight   
  With a little penny drum to lift their feet.            
Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,   
  Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!   
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,   
  Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!   

As long as there’s an Englishman to ask a tale of me,            
  As long as I can tell the tale aright,   
We’ll not forget the penny whistle’s wheedle-deedle-dee   
  And the big Dragoon a-beating down the night,   
Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,   
  Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!            
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,   
  Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!

Henry Newbolt

The Vigil


ENGLAND! where the sacred flame   
    Burns before the inmost shrine,   
Where the lips that love thy name   
    Consecrate their hopes and thine,   
Where the banners of thy dead           
Weave their shadows overhead,   
Watch beside thine arms to-night,   
Pray that God defend the Right.   

Think that when to-morrow comes   
    War shall claim command of all,            
Thou must hear the roll of drums,   
    Thou must hear the trumpet’s call.   
Now, before thy silence ruth,   
Commune with the voice of truth;   
England! on thy knees to-night            
Pray that God defend the Right.   

Single-hearted, unafraid,   
    Hither all thy heroes came,   
On this altar’s steps were laid   
    Gordon’s life and Outram’s fame.           
England! if thy will be yet   
By their great example set,   
Here beside thine arms to-night   
Pray that God defend the Right.   

So shalt thou when morning comes            
    Rise to conquer or to fall,   
Joyful hear the rolling drums,   
    Joyful hear the trumpets call,   
Then let Memory tell thy heart:   
“England! what thou wert, thou art!”            
Gird thee with thine ancient might,   
Forth! and God defend the Right!   


Henry Newbolt

How Steep the Brave! 


NAY, nay, sweet England, do not grieve!   
  Not one of these poor men who died   
But did within his soul believe   
  That death for thee was glorified.   

Ever they watched it hovering near            
  That mystery ’yond thought to plumb,   
Perchance sometimes in loathèd fear   
  They heard cold Danger whisper, Come!—   

Heard and obeyed. O, if thou weep   
  Such courage and honour, beauty, care,            
Be it for joy that those who sleep   
  Only thy joy could share.    


Walter de la Mare
 

The Cricketers of Flanders


THE FIRST to climb the parapet   
With “cricket balls” in either hand;   
The first to vanish in the smoke   
Of God-forsaken No Man’s Land;   
First at the wire and soonest through,            
First at those red-mouthed hounds of hell,   
The Maxims, and the first to fall,—   
They do their bit and do it well.   

Full sixty yards I’ve seen them throw   
With all that nicety of aim            
They learned on British cricket-fields,   
Ah, bombing is a Briton’s game!   
Shell-hole to shell-hole, trench to trench,   
“Lobbing them over” with an eye   
As true as though it were a game            
And friends were having tea close by.   

Pull down some art-offending thing   
Of carven stone, and in its stead   
Let splendid bronze commemorate   
These men, the living and the dead.            
No figure of heroic size,   
Towering skyward like a god;   
But just a lad who might have stepped   
From any British bombing squad.   

His shrapnel helmet set atilt,            
His bombing waistcoat sagging low,   
His rifle slung across his back:   
Poised in the very act to throw.   
And let some graven legend tell   
Of those weird battles in the West            
Wherein he put old skill to use,   
And played old games with sterner zest.   

Thus should he stand, reminding those   
In less-believing days, perchance,   
How Britain’s fighting cricketers            
Helped bomb the Germans out of France.   
And other eyes than ours would see;   
And other hearts than ours would thrill;   
And others say, as we have said:   
“A sportsman and a soldier still!”


James Norman Hall

Sonnets Written in the Fall of 1914


I
AWAKE, ye nations, slumbering supine,   
  Who round enring the European fray!   
  Heard ye the trumpet sound? “The Day! the Day!   
The last that shall on England’s Empire shine!   
The Parliament that broke the Right Divine           
  Shall see her realm of reason swept away,   
  And lesser nations shall the sword obey—   
The sword o’er all carve the great world’s design!”   

So on the English Channel boasts the foe   
  On whose imperial brow death’s helmet nods.           
Look where his hosts o’er bloody Belgium go,   
  And mix a nation’s past with blazing sods!   
A kingdom’s waste! a people’s homeless woe!   
  Man’s broken Word, and violated gods!   

II
Far fall the day when England’s realm shall see           
  The sunset of dominion! Her increase   
  Abolishes the man-dividing seas,   
And frames the brotherhood on earth to be!   
She, in free peoples planting sovereignty,   
  Orbs half the civil world in British peace;           
  And though time dispossess her, and she cease,   
Rome-like she greatens in man’s memory.   

Oh, many a crown shall sink in war’s turmoil,   
  And many a new republic light the sky,   
Fleets sweep the ocean, nations till the soil,           
  Genius be born and generations die,   
Orient and Occident together toil,   
  Ere such a mighty work man rears on high!   

III
Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread   
  The wine-press of the nations; fast the blood           
  Pours from the side of Europe; in the flood   
On the septentrional watershed   
The rivers of fair France are running red!   
  England, the mother-aerie of our brood,   
  That on the summit of dominion stood,           
Shakes in the blast: heaven battles overhead!   

Lift up thy head, O Rheims, of ages heir   
  That treasured up in thee their glorious sum;   
Upon whose brow, prophetically fair,   
  Flamed the great morrow of the world to come;           
Haunt with thy beauty this volcanic air   
  Ere yet thou close, O Flower of Christendom!   

IV
As when the shadow of the sun’s eclipse   
  Sweeps on the earth, and spreads a spectral air,   
  As if the universe were dying there,           
On continent and isle the darkness dips   
Unwonted gloom, and on the Atlantic slips;   
  So in the night the Belgian cities flare   
  Horizon-wide; the wandering people fare   
Along the roads, and load the fleeing ships.           

And westward borne that planetary sweep   
  Darkening o’er England and her times to be,   
Already steps upon the ocean-deep!   
  Watch well, my country, that unearthly sea,   
Lest when thou thinkest not, and in thy sleep,           
  Unapt for war, that gloom enshadow thee.   

V
I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer.   
  How many wars have been in my brief years!   
  All races and all faiths, both hemispheres,   
My eyes have seen embattled everywhere           
The wide earth through; yet do I not despair   
  Of peace, that slowly through far ages nears;   
  Though not to me the golden morn appears,   
My faith is perfect in time’s issue fair.   

For man doth build on an eternal scale,           
  And his ideals are framed of hope deferred;   
The millennium came not; yet Christ did not fail,   
  Though ever unaccomplished is His word;   
Him Prince of Peace, though unenthroned, we hail,   
  Supreme when in all bosoms He be heard.           

VI
This is my faith, and my mind’s heritage,   
  Wherein I toil, though in a lonely place,   
  Who yet world-wide survey the human race   
Unequal from wild nature disengage   
Body and soul, and life’s old strife assuage;           
  Still must abide, till heaven perfect its grace,   
  And love grown wisdom sweeten in man’s face,   
Alike the Christian and the heathen rage.   

The tutelary genius of mankind   
  Ripens by slow degrees the final State,           
That in the soul shall its foundations find   
  And only in victorious love grow great;   
Patient the heart must be, humble the mind,   
  That doth the greater births of time await!   

VII
Whence not unmoved I see the nations form           
  From Dover to the fountains of the Rhine,   
  A hundred leagues, the scarlet battle-line,   
And by the Vistula great armies swarm,   
A vaster flood; rather my breast grows warm,   
  Seeing all peoples of the earth combine           
  Under one standard, with one countersign,   
Grown brothers in the universal storm.   

And never through the wide world yet there rang   
  A mightier summons! O Thou who from the side   
Of Athens and the loins of Cæsar sprang,           
  Strike, Europe, with half the coming world allied   
For those ideals for which, since Homer sang,   
  The hosts of thirty centuries have died.   


George Edward Woodberry

A Petition

ALL that a man might ask thou hast given me, England,   
  Birthright and happy childhood’s long heart’s-ease,   
And love whose range is deep beyond all sounding   
  And wider than all seas:   

A heart to front the world and find God in it,           
  Eyes blind enow but not too blind to see   
The lovely things behind the dross and darkness,   
  And lovelier things to be;   

And friends whose loyalty time nor death shall weaken   
  And quenchless hope and laughter’s golden store—            
All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England,   
  Yet grant thou one thing more:   

That now when envious foes would spoil thy splendour,   
  Unversed in arms, a dreamer such as I,   
May in thy ranks be deemed not all unworthy,            
  England, for thee to die.

Robert Ernest Vernède
 

Headquarters


A LEAGUE and a league from the trenches—from the traversed maze of the lines,   
Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines,   
And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines—   

Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those her roses that bloom   
In the garden beyond the windows of my littered working room?) 
We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom.   

Fair, on each lettered numbered square—crossroad and mound and wire,   
Loophole, redoubt, and emplacement—lie the targets their mouths desire;   
Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire.   

And ever the type-keys chatter; and ever our keen wires bring            
Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing:   
And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid guns thundering.   

Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench lines crawl,   
Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging, shrapnel’s fall—   
Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall.            

For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close…. There is scarcely a leaf astir   
In the garden beyond my windows, where the twilight shadows blur   
The blaze of some woman’s roses….   
                    “Bombardment orders, sir.”


Gilbert Frankau

John Burns of Gettysburg

    HAVE you heard of a story that gossips tell
    Of Burns of Gettysburg? No? Ah, well:
    Brief is the glory that hero earns,
    Briefer the story of poor John Burns:
    He was the fellow who won renown,--
    The only man who didn't back down
    When the rebels rode through his native town;
    But held his own in the fight next day,
    When all his townsfolk ran away.
    That was in July, sixty-three,--
    The very day that General Lee,
    Flower of Southern chivalry,
    Baffled and beaten, backward reeled
    From a stubborn Meade and a barren field,

    I might tell how, but the day before,
    John Burns stood at his cottage-door,
    Looking down the village street,
    Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
    He heard the low of his gathered kine,
    And felt their breath with incense sweet;
    Or I might say, when the sunset burned
    The old farm gable, he thought it turned
    The milk that fell like a babbling flood
    Into the milk-pail, red as blood!
    Or how he fancied the hum of bees
    Were bullets buzzing among the trees.
    But all such fanciful thoughts as these
    Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
    Who minded only his own concerns,
    Troubled no more by fancies fine
    Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine,
    Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,
    Slow to argue, but quick to act.
    That was the reason, as some folks say,
    He fought so well on that terrible day.

    And it was terrible. On the right
    Raged for hours the heady fight,
    Thundered the battery's double brass,--
    Difficult music for men to face;
    While on the left--where now the graves
    Undulate like the living waves
    That all the day unceasing swept
    Up to the pits the rebels kept--
    Round-shot ploughed the upland glades,
    Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
    Shattered fences here and there,
    Tossed their splinters in the air;
    The very trees were stripped and bare;
    The barns that once held yellow grain
    Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
    The cattle bellowed on the plain,
    The turkeys screamed with might and main,
    And the brooding barn-fowl left their rest
    With strange shells bursting in each nest.

    Just where the tide of battle turns,
    Erect and lonely, stood old John Burns.
    How do you think the man was dressed?
    He wore an ancient, long buff vest,
    Yellow as saffron,--but his best;
    And, buttoned over his manly breast,
    Was a bright blue coat with a rolling collar,
    And large gilt buttons--size of a dollar,--
    With tails that the country-folk called "swaller."
    He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
    White as the locks on which it sat.
    Never had such a sight been seen
    For forty years on the village green,
    Since old John Burns was a country beau,
    And went to the "quiltings" long ago.

    Close at his elbow all that day
    Veterans of the Peninsula,
    Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
    And striplings, downy of lip and chin,--
    Clerks that the Home-Guard mustered in,--
    Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore,
    Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
    And hailed him, from out their youthful lore,
    With scraps of a slangy repertoire:
    "How are you, White Hat?" "Put her through!"
    "Your head's level!" and "Bully for you!"
    Called him "Daddy,"--begged he'd disclose
    The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
    And what was the value he set on those;
    While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
    Stood there picking the rebels off,--
    With his long brown rifle, and bell-crowned hat,
    And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.

    'Twas but a moment, for that respect
    Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
    And something the wildest could understand
    Spake in the old man's strong right hand,
    And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
    Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown;
    Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe
    Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
    In the antique vestments and long white hair,
    The Past of the Nation in battle there;
    And some of the soldiers since declare
    That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
    Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
    That day was their Oriflamme of war.

    So raged the battle. You know the rest:
    How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed,
    Broke at the final charge and ran.
    At which John Burns--a practical man--
    Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
    And then went back to his bees and cows.

    That is the story of old John Burns;
    This is the moral the reader learns:
    In fighting the battle, the question's whether
    You'll show a hat that's white or a feather.

        Bret Harte

The Skull In the Grass

    So round and white, in the tangled grass,
    It questions me, and I cannot pass.

    "Now who art thou, so bluff and so brave,
    Without a thought of the quiet grave?
    We sailed from Hull in a seventy-four,
    My mate and I and three hundred more.
    We took as a prize a Spanish ship;
    To the fleet of the French we gave the slip.
    A storm came down full of wind and hail;
    It smote the sea like an iron flail.
    With a forward lurch and a grinding shock,
    The vessel struck on a sunken rock;
    Her men and her guns and her gaping sides
    Swept by the rush of the swinging tides.
    From the icy shrouds we slipped and fell
    Down to our graves without priest or knell.
    Now go! and, perchance, may come for thee
    A death as brave in the angry sea."

    So spoke the skull in the tangled grass,
    When it questioned me, and I could not pass.

        Newton Marshall Hall

 In the Reading Room of the British Museum
    PRAISED be the moon of books! that doth above
    A world of men, the fallen Past behold,
    And fill the spaces else so void and cold
    To make a very heaven again thereof;
    As when the sun is set behind a grove,
    And faintly unto nether ether rolled,
    All night his whiter image and his mould
    Grows beautiful with looking on her love.

    Thou therefore, moon of so divine a ray,
    Lend to our steps both fortitude and light!
    Feebly along a venerable way
    They climb the infinite, or perish quite;
    Nothing are days and deeds to such as they,
    While in this liberal house thy face is bright.

        Louise Imogen Guiney

The Song of Steel

    Yea, art thou lord, O Man, since Tubal Cain
    Brought me into being, white and torn with pain--
    Wrung me, in fierce, hot agony of birth,
    Writhing from out of the womb of mother earth.

    Art thou, then, king, and did I make thee lord,
    Clothe thee in mail and gird thee with the sword,
    Give thee the plough, the ax, the whirring wheel--
    To every subtle craft its tools of steel?

    Look! We have slain the forests, thou and I--
    Soiled the bright streams and murked the very sky;
    Crushed the glad hills and shocked the quiet stars
    With roaring factories and clanging cars!

    Thou builder of machines, who dost not see!
    That which thou mad'st to drive, is driving thee--
    Ravening, tireless, pitiless its strain
    For thy last ounce of work from hand and brain.

    Are thy sons princes? Hard-wrung serfs! They give
    Toil's utmost dregs for the bare chance to live;
    They dig and delve and strive with sweat-cursed brow
    In forge and shop. Master? Nay! Thrall art thou!

    Fool! Serving, I have slaved thee. Master Fool!
    To forge the sword, nor know the sword should rule;
    To make the engine, blind that it must lead
    Fast and yet faster on the race of greed.

    I, Steel, am King--thy king in more than name!
    Lo, I am Moloch, crowned and throned in flame,
    Holding thee slave by lust of thy desire--
    Calling thy first-born to me through the fire!

        Charles Buxton Going

When I Was One-and-Twenty

When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
    But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
    But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
    No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
    Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
    And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
    And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

    A. E. Housman

 i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                    i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

EE Cummings

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Rivers Of The Blood

Have you seen the rivers of the blood?
First a trickle, then a flood --
First the ocean's pounding roar,
Then a tidal wave hits upon the shore.
Knives and arrows fell like rain,
And the powder burst aflame,
And the flames they flew so high --
Dropped their poison down from the sky.

In the shadow of the bygone days
Millions died in a million ways.
Now the whining of the missile's call:
It's time to rise or it's time to fall,
For now one million bombs are stored,
But they keep building more and more.
Can't you hear the warning sound?
Don't you know there's still time to turn around?

In the shadow of the bygone days
Millions died in a million ways.
Now the whining of the missile's call:
It's time to rise or it's time to fall,
For now one million bombs are stored,
They keep building more and more.
Can't you you hear the warning sound?
Don't you know there's still time to turn around?
-- time to turn around.


Phil Ochs

Is There Anybody Here?

Is there anybody here who'd like to change his clothes into a uniform,
Is there anybody here who thinks they're only serving in a raging storm.
Is there anybody here with glory in their eyes,
Loyal to the end, whose duty is to die,
I want to see him, I want to wish him luck,
I wanna shake his hand, wanna call his name,
Pin a medal on the man.

Is there anybody here who'd like to wrap a flag around an early grave,
Is there anybody here who thinks they're standing taller on a battle wave.
Is there anybody here like to do his part,
Soldier to the world and a hero to his heart,
I want to see him, I want to wish him luck,
I wanna shake his hand, wanna call his name,
Pin a medal on the man.


Is there anybody here proud of the parade,
Who'd like to give a cheer and show they're not afraid.
I'd like like to ask him what he's trying to defend,
I'd like to ask him what he thinks he's gonna win.
Is there anybody here who thinks that following orders takes away the blame
Is there anybody here who'd wouldn't mind a murder by another name
Is there anybody here whose pride is on the line,
With the honor of the brave and the courage of the blind,
I want to see him, I want to wish him luck,
I wanna shake his hand, gonna call his name,
Pin a medal on the man.
Medal on the man.

What Did You Learn In School Today


What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie
I learned that soldiers seldom die
I learned that everybody's free
That's what the teacher said to me
And that's what I learned in school today
That's what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that policemen are my friends
I learned that justice never ends
I learned that murderers die for their crimes
Even if we make a mistake sometimes
And that's what I learned in school today
That's what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that war is not so bad
I learned about the great ones we have had
We fought in Germany and in France
And someday I might get my chance
And that's what I learned in school today
That's what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that our government must be strong
It's always right and never wrong
Our leaders are the finest men
So we elect them again and again
And that's what I learned in school today
That's what I learned in school

Tom Paxton

Song For Sarajevo

Blood in all the streets, running like a flood
There's no where to hide, no where that I can go
I reach out my hand, touching death itself
Just a holy day in Sarajevo
I can hear my heart, pounding like a clock
Hiding from the planes and from the bombing
Fire from the sky, burning down my life
There is no more love and no more longing
But when I close my eyes:
I dream of peace

I dream of flowers on the hill
I dream I see my mother smiling
When I close my eyes I dream of peace
Once I had a home, once my life was good
Once my mother sang to me and held me
Then the fire came, falling from the sky
There is no one left who can protect me
War's a wicked bird that never comes to rest
Feeding on the dreams of all the children
War's an evil bird flying in the dark
Every holy promise has been broken
But when I close my eyes:
I dream of peace

I dream of flowers on the hill
I dream I see my mother smiling
When I close my eyes I dream of peace
Can't you stop the war, bring it to a close
You are tall and strong and I am just a child
Can't we live in peace, stop the flowing blood
Make a blessed world where I can be a child
When you close your eyes:
Do you dream of peace?

Do you dream of flowers on the hill?
Do you dream you see your mother smiling?
When you close your eyes do you dream of peace?
When you close your eyes:
Do you dream of peace?

Do you dream of flowers on the hill?
Do you dream you see your mother smiling?
When you close your eyes do you dream of peace?
Open up your eyes and give us peace.

Judy Collins

Bonnie Ship The Diamond


The Diamond is a ship my boys, for Greenland she is bound
And the quay it is all garnished with bonny lassies 'round
The captain gives the order to sail the ocean wide
Where the sun it never sets my lads, no darkness dims the tide

So cheer up my lads let your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship, the Diamond goes fishin' for the whale

Along the quay at Peterhead, the lassies stand around
With their shawls about their heads and salt tears runnin' down
I'll never weep my bonny lad though I'm left behind
For there's not a rose on Greenland's ice to make you change your mind

So cheer up my lads let your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship, the Diamond goes fishin' for the whale

Here's a health to the resolution likewise the Eliza Swan
A health to the Battle of Montrose and the Diamond ship of fame
They wear the trousers of the white the jackets of the blue
When they return to Peterhead they'll find that we've been true

So cheer up my lads let your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship, the Diamond goes fishin' for the whale

It'll be bright both day and night when the Greenland lads come home
With a ship that's full of oil my lads and money to their name
They'll make the cradles for to rock and the blankets for to tear
And every lass in Peterhead sing hush-a-bye my dear

So cheer up my lads let your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship, the Diamond goes fishin' for the whale

Farewell To Tarwathie

Farewell to Tarwathie
Adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimmond
I bid you farewell
I'm bound off for Greenland
And ready to sail
In hopes to find riches
In hunting the whale

Farewell to my comrades
For a while we must part
And likewise the dear lass
Who first won my heart
The cold coast of Greenland
My love will not chill
And the longer my absence
More loving she'll feel

Our ship is well rigged
And she's ready to sail
The crew they are anxious
To follow the whale
Where the icebergs do float
And the stormy winds blow
Where the land and the ocean
Is covered with snow

The cold coast of Greenland
Is barren and bare
No see time nor harvest
Is ever known there
And the birds here sing sweetly
In mountain and dale
But there's no bird in Greenland
To sing to the whale

There is no habitation
For a man to live there
And the king of that country
Is the fierce Greenland bear
And there'll be no temptation
To tarry long there
With our ship under full
We will homeward repair

Farewell to Tarwathie
Adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimmond
I bid you farewell
I'm bound off for Greenland
And ready to sail
In hopes to find riches
In hunting the whale

With God On Our Side

Oh, my name, it means nothin', my age it means less
The country I come from is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there, the laws to abide
And the land that I live in has God on its side

Oh, the history books tell it, they tell it so well
The cavalries charged, the Indians fell
The cavalries charged, the Indians died
Oh, the country was young with God on its side

Oh, the Spanish-American war had its day
And the civil war too was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes I was made to memorize
With guns in their hands and God on their side

Oh, the first world war, boys it closed out its fate
The reason for fighting I never got straight
But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead when God's on your side

When the second world war came to an end
We forgave the Germans and then we were friends
Though they murdered six million, in the ovens they fried
The Germans now too have God on their side

But now we've got weapons of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to, then fire them we must
One push of the button and a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions when God's on your side

So now as I'm leavin', I'm weary as hell
The confusion I'm feelin', ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head and fall to the floor
Oh, if God's on our side, He'll stop the next war

Bold Fenian Men

'Twas down by the glenside, I spied an old woman
She was plucking young nettles, she scarce saw me coming
I listened a while to the song she was humming
Glory O, Glory O to our bold Fenian men

'Tis sixteen long years since I saw the moon beaming
On strong manly forms and their eyes were hot gleaming
I see them on a, sure, in all my daydreaming
Glory O, Glory O to our bold Fenian men

Some died on the hillside, some died with a stranger
And wise men have judged that their cause was a failure
They fought for their freedom and they never feared danger
Glory O, Glory O to our bold Fenian men

I passed on my way, thanks to God that I met her
Be life long or short sure I'll never forget her
There may have been brave men but they'll never be better
Glory O, Glory O to our bold Fenian men

The Rising Of The Moon


Ah then tell me Sean O'Farrell
Tell me why you're hurrying so
Hush my boy oh hush and listen
And his eyes were all aglow
I bear orders from the captain
Get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together
At the rising of the moon

Ah then tell me Sean O'Farrell
Where the gatherin' is to be
In the old spot by the river
Right well known to you and me
One thing more for signal token
Whistle up the marchin' tune
With your sword upon your shoulder
At the rising of the moon

Rumours passed along the valley
Like a banshee's lonely croon
And a thousand blades were flashin'
At the rising of the moon

All along the singing river
That dark mass of men were seen
Far above their shining weapons
Hung their own immortal dreams
Death to every foe and traitor
Foreign strike the marchin' tune
And hurrah me boys for Ireland
Tis the rising of the moon

Well, they fought for poor old Ireland
And full bitter was their fate
Oh what glorious pride and sorrow
Fill the name of ninety-eight
Yet thank God while hearts are beating
Foreign manhood's burnin' noon,
We shall follow in their footsteps
At the rising of the moon.

Death to every foe and traitor
Foreign, strike the marchin' tune
And hurrah me boys for freedom
Tis the rising,
Tis the rising of the moon

Quote:

You ask, What is our policy? 

I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. 

That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory — victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

W. Churchill

Draw the Sword Scotland!

Draw the Sword Scotland! Scotland! Scotland!
Over moor and mountain hath passed the war sign,
The pibroch is pealing! pealing! pealing!
Who heeds not the summons is nae son o' thine.

The Clans they are gath'ring! gath'ring! gath'ring!
The Clans they are gath'ring by loch and by lea,
The banners they are flying! flying! flying!
The banners they are flying that lead to Victory.

Draw the Sword Scotland! Scotland! Scotland!
Charge as ye have charg'd in days lang syne.
Sound to the onset, the onset, the on-set,
He who but falters is nae son of thine.

Sheath the sword Scotland! Scotland! Scotland!
Sheath the sword Scotland for dim'd is its shine,
Thy foemen are fleeing! fleeing! fleeing!
And who kens no mercy is nae son o' thine.

The struggle is over! over! over!
The struggle is over! the Victory won!
There are tears for the fallen! fallen! fallen!
And glory for all who their duty have done.

Sheath the sword Scotland! Scotland! Scotland!
With thy lov'd thistle new laurels entwine,
Time ne'er shall part them, part them, part them,
But hand down the garland to each son o' thine. 

J R Planche

The Exile of Cluny

Oh, many a true Highlander, many a liegeman,
   Is blank on the roll of the brave in our land;
And bare as its heath is the dark mountain region,
   Of its own and its prince's defenders unmann'd.
The hound's death abhorr'd, some have died by the cord,
   And the axe with the best of our blood is defiled,
And e'en to the visions of hope unrestored,
   Some have gone from among us, for ever exiled.

He is gone from among us, our chieftain of Cluny;
   At the back of the steel, a more valiant ne'er stood;
Our father, our champion, bemoan we, bemoan we!
   In battle, the brilliant; in friendship, the good.
When the sea shut him from us, then the cross of our trial
   Was hung on the mast and was swung in the wind:
"Woe the worth we have sepulchred!" now is the cry all;
   "Save the shade of a memory, is nothing behind."

What symbols may match our brave chief's animation?
   When his wrath was awake, 'twas a furnace in glow;
As a surge on the rock struck his bold indignation,
   As the breach to the wall was his arm to the foe.
So the tempest comes down, when it lends in its fury
   To the frown of its darkness the rattling of hail;
So rushes the land-flood in turmoil and hurry,
   So bickers the hill-flame when fed by the gale.

Yet gentle as Peace was the flower of his race,
   Rare was shade on his face, as dismay in his heart;
The brawl and the scuffle he deem'd a disgrace,
   But the hand to the brand was as ready to start.
Who could grapple with him in firmness of limb
   And sureness of sinew? and — for the stout blow —
'Twas the scythe to the swathe in the meadows of death,
   Where numbers were levell'd as fast and as low.

Ever loyal to reason, we've seen him appeasing
   With a wave of one hand the confusion of strife;
With the other unsheathing his sword, and, unbreathing,
   Following on for the right in the havoc of life.
To the wants of the helpless, the wail of the weak,
   His hand aye was open, his arm was aye strong;
And under yon sun, not a tongue can bespeak
   His word or his deed that was blemish'd with wrong. 

Trad.

Cam' ye by Athol?

    Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philabeg,
    Down by the Tummel, or banks of the Garry?
    Saw ye the lads, wi' their bonnets an' white cockades,
    Leaving their mountains to follow Prince Charlie.

    Chorus
    Follow thee, follow thee, wha wadna follow thee?
    Long has thou lov'd an' trusted us fairly!
    Charlie, Charlie, wha wadna follow thee?
    King o' the Highland hearts, bonnie Charlie.

    I hae but ae son, my gallant young Donald;
    But if I had ten, they should follow Glengarry;
    Health to MacDonald and gallant Clan Ronald,
    For these are the men that will die for their Charlie.

    I'll go to Lochiel, and Appin, and kneel to them;
    Down by Lord Murray and Roy of Kildarlie;
    Brave Mackintosh, he shall fly to the field wi' them;
    These are the lads I can trust wi' my Charlie.

    Down by thro' the Lowlands, down wi' the whigamore,
    Loyal true Highlanders, down wi' them rarely;
    Ronald and Donald drive on wi' the braid claymore,
    Over the necks o' the foes o' Prince Charlie.

Castles in the Air

The bonnie, bonnie bairn wha sits poking in the ase,
Glow'ring in the fire wi' his wee round face;
Laughing at the fuffin' lowe, what sees he there?
Ha! the young dreamer's bigging castles in the air.

His wee chubby face and his touzie curly pow,
Are laughing and nodding... to the dancing lowe,
He'll brown his rosy cheeks, and singe his sunny hair,
Glow'ring at the imps wi' their castles in the air.

He sees muckle castles tow'ring to the moon,
He sees little sodgers pu'ing them a' doun!
Worlds whombling up and doun, bleezing wi' a flare,
See how he loups! as they glimmer in the air.

For a' sae sage he looks, what can the laddie ken!
He's thinking upon naething, like mony mighty men;
A wee thing mak's us think, a sma' thing mak's us stare,
There are mair folk than him bigging castles in the air.

Sic a night in winter weel mak' him cauld;
His chin upon his buffy hand will soon mak' him auld,
His brow is brent sae braid, O pray that daddy Care,
Would let the wean alane, wi' his castles in the air.

He'll glow'r at the fire! and he'll keek at the light!
But mony sparkling stars are swallow'd up by night;
Aulder e'en than his are glamour'd by a glare,
Hearts are broken, heads are turn'd wi' castles in the air. 

James Ballantyne

Our Ain Native Land

    Our ain native land! our ain native land!
       There's a charm in the words that we a' understand,
    That flings o'er the bosom the power of a spell,
       And makes us love mair what we a' love so well.
    The heart may have feelings it canna conceal,
       As the mind has the thoughts that nae words can reveal,
    But alike he the feelings and thought can command
       Who names but the name o' our ain native land.

    Our ain native land! our ain native land!
       Though bleak be its mountains and rugged its strand,
    The waves aye seem bless'd, dancing wild o'er the sea,
       When woke by the winds from the hills o' the free.
    Our sky oft is dark, and our storms loud and cauld,
       But where are the hearts that sic worth can unfauld
    As those that unite, and uniting expand,
       When they hear but the name o' our ain native land?

    Our ain native land! our ain native land!
       To hear of her famed ones let none e'er demand,
    For the hours o' a' time far too little would prove
       To name but the names that we honour and love.
    The bard lives in light, though his heart it be still,
       And the cairn of the warrior stands gray on the hill,
    And songster and sage can alike still command
       A garland of fame from our ain native land.

    Our ain native land! our ain native land!
       Her wild woods are glorious, her waterfalls grand,
    And her songs still proclaim, as they ring through the glen,
       The charms of her maids and the worth of her men.
    Her thistle shall cease in the breezes to wave,
       And the floweret to bloom on the patriot's grave,
    Ere we cease to defend, with our heart and our hand,
       The freedom and faith of our ain native land. 

Henry Scott Riddell

 Kubla Khan

    IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
    A stately pleasure-dome decree:
    Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
    Through caverns measureless to man
    Down to a sunless sea.

    So twice five miles of fertile ground
    With walls and towers were girdled round:
    And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
    Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
    And here were forests ancient as the hills,
    Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

    But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
    Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
    A savage place! as holy and enchanted
    As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
    By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

    And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
    As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
    A mighty fountain momently was forced:
    Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
    Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
    Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
    And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
    It flung up momently the sacred river.

    Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
    Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
    Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
    And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
    And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
    Ancestral voices prophesying war!

        The shadow of the dome of pleasure
        Floated midway on the waves;
        Where was heard the mingled measure
        From the fountain and the caves. 

    It was a miracle of rare device,
    A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

        A damsel with a dulcimer
        In a vision once I saw:
        It was an Abyssinian maid,
        And on her dulcimer she played,
        Singing of Mount Abora.
        Could I revive within me
        Her symphony and song,
        To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
        That with music loud and long,
        I would build that dome in air,
        That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 

        And all who heard should see them there,
        And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
        His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
        Weave a circle round him thrice,
        And close your eyes with holy dread,
        For he on honey-dew hath fed,
        And drunk the milk of Paradise.

        Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Lepanto

    WHITE founts falling in the courts of the sun,
    And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
    There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
    It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
    It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
    For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
    They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
    They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
    And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
    And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
    The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
    The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
    From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
    And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

    Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
    Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
    Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
    The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
    The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
    That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
    In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
    Comes up along the winding road the noise of the Crusade.

    Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
    Don John of Austria is going to the war,
    Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
    In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold.

    Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
    Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
    Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
    Spurning of his stirrups like the throne of all the world,
    Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
    Love-light of Spain -- hurrah!
    Death-light of Africa!

    Don John of Austria
    Is riding to the sea.

    Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
    (Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
    He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
    His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
    He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
    And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
    And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
    Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
    Giants and the Genii,
    Multiplex of wing and eye,
    Whose strong obedience broke the sky
    When Solomon was king.

    They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
    From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
    They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
    Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
    On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
    Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
    They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
    They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
    And he saith, `Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
    And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
    And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
    For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
    We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
    Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
    But noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
    The voice that shook our palaces -- four hundred years ago:
    It is he that saith not `Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
    It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
    It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
    Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.'
    For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
    (Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
    Sudden and still -- hurrah!
    Bolt from Iberia!

    Don John of Austria
    Is gone by Alcalar.

    St Michael's on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
    (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
    Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
    And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
    He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
    The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
    The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
    And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
    And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room
    And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
    And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
    But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.

    Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
    Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
    Trumpet that sayeth ha!
    Domino gloria!

    Don John of Austria
    Is shouting to the ships.

    King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
    (Don Juan of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
    The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
    And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
    He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
    He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
    And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
    Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
    And death is in the phial; and the end of noble work,
    But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

    Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed --
    Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
    Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
    Gun upon gun, hurrah!

    Don John of Austria
    Has loosed the cannonade.

    The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
    (Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
    The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
    The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
    He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
    The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
    They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
    They veil the plumèd lions on the galley's of St. Mark;
    And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
    And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
    Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
    Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

    They are lost like slaves that swat, and in the skies of morning hung
    The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
    They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
    Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
    And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
    Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
    And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign --
    (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
    Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
    Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
    Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
    Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
    Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
    White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
    Vivat Hispania!
    Domino Gloria!

    Don John of Austria
    Has set his people free!

    Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
    (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
    And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
    Upon which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
    And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade...

    (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

        G. K. Chesterton

 A Song of Defeat

    THE line breaks and the guns go under,
        The lords and the lackeys ride the plain;
    I draw deep breaths of the dawn and thunder,
        And the whole of my heart grows young again.
    For our chiefs said 'Done,' and I did not deem it;
        Our seers said 'Peace,' and it was not peace;
    Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,
        And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.
    But the old flags reel and the old drums rattle,
        As once in my life they throbbed and reeled;
    I have found my youth in the lost battle,
        I have found my heart on the battlefield.
            For we that fight till the world is free,
            We are not easy in victory:
            We have known each other too long, my brother,
            And fought each other, the world and we.

    And I dream of the days when work was scrappy,
        And rare in our pockets the mark of the mint,
    When we were angry and poor and happy,
        And proud of seeing our names in print.
    For so they conquered and so we scattered,
        When the Devil road and his dogs smelt gold,
    And the peace of a harmless folk was shattered;
        When I was twenty and odd years old.
    When the mongrel men that the market classes
        Had slimy hands upon England's rod,
    And sword in hand upon Afric's passes
        Her last Republic cried to God.
            For the men no lords can buy or sell,
            They sit not easy when all goes well,
            They have said to each other what naught can smother,
            They have seen each other, our souls and hell.

    It is all as of old, the empty clangour,
        The Nothing scrawled on a five-foot page,
    The huckster who, mocking holy anger,
        Painfully paints his face with rage.
    And the faith of the poor is faint and partial,
        And the pride of the rich is all for sale,
    And the chosen heralds of England's Marshal
        Are the sandwich-men of the Daily Mail,
    And the niggards that dare not give are glutted,
        And the feeble that dare not fail are strong,
    So while the City of Toil is gutted,
        I sit in the saddle and sing my song.
            For we that fight till the world is free,
            We have no comfort in victory;
            We have read each other as Cain his brother,
            We know each other, these slaves and we.

        G. K. Chesterton