Fain would I speak one word and be spared;
Yet I could be silent and cheerfully die,
If I were only sure God cared;
If I had faith, and were only certain
That light is behind that terrible curtain.
But what if He listeth nothing at all,
Of words a poor wretch in his terror may say?
That mighty God who created all
To labour and live their appointed day;
Who stoops not either to bless or ban,
Weaving the woof of an endless plan.
He is the Reaper, and binds the sheaf,
Shall not the season its order keep?
Can it be changed by a man’s belief?
Millions of harvests still to reap;
Will God reward, if I die for a creed,
Or will He but pity, and sow more seed?
Surely He pities who made the brain,
When breaks that mirror of memories sweet,
When the hard blow falleth, and never again
Nerve shall quiver nor pulse shall beat;
Bitter the vision of vanishing joys;
Surely He pities when man destroys.
Here stand I on the ocean’s brink,
Who hath brought news of the further shore?
How shall I cross it? Sail or sink,
One thing is sure, I return no more;
Shall I find haven, or aye shall I be
Tossed in the depths of a shoreless sea?
They tell fair tales of a far-off land,
Of love rekindled, of forms renewed;
There may I only touch one hand
Here life’s ruin will little be rued;
But the hand I have pressed and the voice I have heard,
To lose them for ever, and all for a word!
Now do I feel that my heart must break
All for one glimpse of a woman’s face;
Swiftly the slumbering memories wake
Odour and shadow of hour and place;
One bright ray through the darkening past
Leaps from the lamp as it brightens last,
Showing me summer in western land
Now, as the cool breeze murmureth
In leaf and flower--And here I stand
In this plain all bare save the shadow of death;
Leaving my life in its full noonday,
And no one to know why I flung it away.
Why? Am I bidding for glory’s roll?
I shall be murdered and clean forgot;
Is it a bargain to save my soul?
God, whom I trust in, bargains not;
Yet for the honour of English race,
May I not live or endure disgrace.
Ay, but the word, if I could have said it,
I by no terrors of hell perplext;
Hard to be silent and have no credit
From man in this world, or reward in the next;
None to bear witness and reckon the cost
Of the name that is saved by the life that is lost.
I must be gone to the crowd untold
Of men by the cause which they served unknown,
Who moulder in myriad graves of old;
Never a story and never a stone
Tells of the martyrs who die like me,
Just for the pride of the old countree.
_Sir Alfred Lyall._
WEBB
CCVI
THE RESIDENCY CHURCHYARD
From domes and palaces I bent my way
Where, like some Titan by Jove’s thunder marred,
From the old battered portal-towers that guard
The storied ruins of a glorious fray.
In patient stillness house and bastion lay,
As they had fallen; for the fight was hard
That saw their walls by myriad bullets scarred,
When those few steadfast warriors stood at bay.
There, by the English tombs of those that fell
In that fierce struggle ’twixt the East and West,
A few green mounds are seen, where peaceful rest
India’s brave sons who perished fighting well
For England too. What heart its feud can keep
Beside these graves where our dark comrades sleep?
_William Trego Webb._
CCVII
THE MEMORIAL WELL
Speak gently, gently tread,
And breathe one sigh profound;
In memory of the dead
Each spot is holy ground.
Theirs was no common doom,
And some were young to die;
Within this narrow tomb
Women and infants lie.
They drank the bitter cup
Of fear and anguish deep,
Ere they were rendered up
To death’s unruffled sleep.
Meek be our sorrow here,
For them we could not save;
And soft be Pity’s tear
Above the children’s grave.
Quenched here be passion’s heat,
Let strife and vengeance cease;
Within their garden sweet
Leave them to rest in peace.
For Nature hath made clean
This place of human guilt;
And now the turf is green
Where English blood was spilt.
Earth’s healing hand hath spread
Her flowers about their tomb;
Around the quiet dead
Trees wave and roses bloom.
Then lift not wrathful hands,
But pass in silence by;
Their carven Angel stands
And watches where they lie.
_William Trego Webb._
CCVIII
SPRING IN CALCUTTA
The cool and pleasant days are past,
The sun above the horizon towers;
And Eastern Spring, arriving fast,
Leads on too soon the sultry hours.
From greener height the palm looks down;
A livelier hue the peepuls share;
And sunlit poinsianas crown
With golden wreaths their branches bare.
The ships that, by the river’s brim,
At anchor, lift their shining sides
Against the red sun’s westering rim,
Swing to the wash of stronger tides.
No insects hum in sylvan bower;
In spectral Stillness stand the trees;--
Come, blessing of our evening hour,
Come forth and blow, sweet southern breeze!
To us the ocean freshness lend
Which from the wave thy breath receives;
Ripple these glassy tanks and send
A murmur through the silent leaves!
See, blurred with amber haze, the sun
’Neath yon dim flats doth sink to rest;
And tender thoughts, that homeward run,
Move fondly with him to the west.
They leave these hot and weary hours,
The iron fate that girds us round,
And wander ’mid the meadow flowers
And breezy heights of English ground.
The sun is set; we’ll dream no more;
Vainly for us the vision smiles;--
Why did we quit thy pleasant shore,
Our happiest of the Happy Isles!
_William Trego Webb._
DENNING
CCIX
THE LUCKNOW GARRISON
Still stand thy ruins ’neath the Indian sky,
Memorials eloquent of blood and tears!
O! for the spirit of those days gone by
To wake a strain amid these later years
Worthy of thee and thine! I seem to see,
When thinking on thy consecrated dead,
From thy scarred chambers start
The heroes whom thy fiery travail bred
And made thee--for us English--what thou art!
Green grows the grass around thy crumbling walls
Where glorious Lawrence groaned his life away!
And childhood’s footsteps echo through those halls
Wherein thy wounded and thy dying lay!
While blent with infant laughter seems to rise
The far-off murmur of thy battle roll,
The prayer--the shout--the groan--
Outram’s unselfish chivalry of soul,
And white-haired Havelock’s strong, commanding tone!
Yet, what are names? The genius of the spot,
Born of our womanhood and manhood brave,
Shall fire our children’s children! Ne’er forgot
Shall be the dust of thy historic grave
While Reverence fills the sense with musing calm,
While Glory stirs the pulse of prince or clown,
While blooms on British sod
The glorious flower of our fair renown,
Our English valour and our trust in God!
The memory of the Living! Lo, they stand
Engirt with honour while the day draws in,
An ever lessening and fraternal band
Linked in chivalric glory and akin
To earth’s immortals! Time may bow the frame
And plough deep wrinkles ’mid their honoured scars,
But Death-like Night which brings
To earth the blaze majestic of the stars,
Shall but enhance their glory with his wings!
The memory of the Dead! A pilgrim, I
Have bowed my face before thy honoured shrine,
With pride deep-welling while the moments by
Sped to a human ecstasy divine
Tingling my very blood, to think that they,
Martyrs and victors in our English need,
Were children of the earth--
Yet better--heroes of our island breed
And men and women of our British birth!
_John Renton Denning._
CCX
SOLDIERS OF IND
_Men of the Hills and men of the Plains, men of the Isles and Sea,
Brothers in bond of battle and blood wherever the battle may be;
A song and a thought for your fighting line, a song for the
march and camp,
A song to the beat of the rolling drums, a song to the measured tramp,
When the feet lift up on the dusty road ’neath sun and moon and star,
And the prayer is prayed by mother and maid for their best
beloved afar!_
What say the Plains--the Plains that stretch along
From hamlet and from field, from fold and byre?
‘Here once toiled one who sang his peasant song
And now reaps harvest ’mid the tribesmen’s fire!
The Spirit of a mightier world than springs
From his poor village led him on
To glory! Yea--to glory!’--Ever sings
The Spirit of the Plains when he is gone!
What say the Hills whence come the Gurkha breed--
The bull-dogs of the East? From crest and vale
Reverberate the echoes, swift they speed
On falling waters or the mountain gale!
‘Our Hillmen brave as lions have gone forth;
They were our sons; we bred them--even we--
To face thy foemen, Islands of the North,
We know their worth and sing it thus to thee!’
What say the Passes? There the requiem
Of battle lingers o’er the undying dead--
‘Our Soldiers of the Sun, whose diadem
Of honour glitters in the nullah bed,
Or by the hillside drear, or dark ravine,
Or on the _sangared_ steep--a solemn ray
That touches thus the thing that once hath been,
With glory--glory!’--So the Passes say!
And so the great world hears and men’s eyes blaze
As each one to his neighbour cries ‘Well done!’
A little thing this speech--this flower of praise,
Yet let it crown our Soldiers of the Sun!
Not here alone--for here we know them well;
But tell our English, waiting on the shore
To welcome back _their_ heroes: ‘Lo! these fell
Even as ours--as brave--for evermore!’
I hear the roar amid the London street:--
The earth hath not its equal, whether it be
For ignorance or knowledge, and the feet
That press therein and eyes that turn to see
Know nothing of our sepoys--let them know
That here be men beneath whose dark skin runs
A battle-virtue kindred with the glow
That fires the leaping pulses of their sons!
’Tis worth proclaiming. Yea, it seems to me
This loyalty--to death--lies close akin
To all the noblest human traits that be,
Engendered whence we know not--yet within
Choice spirits nobly gathered. Lo! we stand,
Needs must, against the world, Yet war’s alarms
Are nothing to our mightiest Motherland,
While Nation circles Nation in her arms!
_John Renton Denning._
CCXI
SARANSAR
What are the bugles saying
With a strain so long and so loud?
They say that a soldier’s blanket
Is meet for a soldier’s shroud!
They say that their hill-tossed music,
Blown forth of the living breath,
Is full of the victor’s triumph
And sad with the wail of death!
_Bugles of Talavera!_
What are the bugles saying?
They tell of the falling night,
When a section of dog-tired English
Drew close for a rear-guard fight;
With an officer-boy to lead them,
A lost and an outflanked squad,
By the grace of a half-learned drill book,
And a prayer to the unseen God!
_Bugles of Talavera!_
What are the bugles saying
Of the stand that was heel to heel?
The click of the quick-pressed lever,
The glint of the naked steel,
The flame of the steady volley,
The hope that was almost gone,
As the leaping horde of the tribesmen
Swept as a tide sweeps on!
_Bugles of Talavera!_
What are the bugles saying?
They say that the teeth are set,
They say that the breath comes thicker,
And the blood-red Night is wet;
While the rough blunt speech of the English,
The burr of the shires afar,
Falls with a lone brave pathos
’Mid the hills of the Saransar!
_Bugles of Talavera!_
What are the bugles saying?
They say that the English there
Feel a breath from their island meadows
Like incense fill the air!
They say that they stood for a moment
With their dear ones by their side,
For their spirits swept to the Homeland
Before the English died!
_Bugles of Talavera!_
And aye are the bugles saying,
While the dust lies low i’ the dust,
The strength of a strong man’s fighting,
The crown of the soldier’s trust--
The wine of a full-brimmed battle,
The peace of the quiet grave,
And a wreath from the hands of glory
Are the guerdon of the brave!
_Bugles of Talavera!_
_John Renton Denning._
KIPLING
CCXII
THE GALLEY-SLAVE
O gallant was our galley from her carven steering-wheel
To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;
The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air,
But no galley on the water with our galley could compare!
Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold--
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold;
The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,
As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.
It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then--
If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!
As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute’s bliss,
And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lovers’ kiss.
Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark--
They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark--
We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped
We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead.
Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we--
The servants of the sweep-head but the masters of the sea!
By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed
and sheered,
Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared?
Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew;
Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle
through.
Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death?
Nay, our very babes would mock you had they time for idle breath.
But to-day I leave the galley and another takes my place;
There’s my name upon the deck-beam--let it stand a little space.
I am free--to watch my messmates beating out to open main
Free of all that Life can offer--save to handle sweep again.
By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel,
By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal;
By eyes grown old with staring through the sunwash on the brine,
I am paid in full for service--would that service still were mine!
Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth,
Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North.
When the niggers break the hatches and the decks are gay with gore,
And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore.
She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare,
When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there.
Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by,
To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and
die.
Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away--
Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day,
When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath,
And the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in
their teeth.
It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more--
Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.
But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then?
God be thanked--whate’er comes after, I have lived and toiled with
Men!
_Rudyard Kipling._
VII
SOUTH AFRICA
PRINGLE
CCXIII
THE DESOLATE VALLEY
Far up among the forest-belted mountains,
Where Winterberg, stern giant old and grey,
Looks down the subject dells, whose gleaming fountains
To wizard Kat their virgin tribute pay,
A valley opens to the noontide ray,
With green savannahs shelving to the brim
Of the swift river, sweeping on its way
To where Umtóka tries to meet with him,
Like a blue serpent gliding through the acacias dim.
There, couched at night in hunter’s wattled shieling,
How wildly-beautiful it was to hear
The elephant his shrill _reveillé_ pealing,
Like some far signal-trumpet on the ear!
While the broad midnight moon was shining clear,
How fearful to look forth upon the woods,
And see those stately forest-kings appear,
Emerging from their shadowy solitudes--
As if that trump had woke Earth’s old gigantic broods!
Look round that vale! behold the unburied bones
Of Ghona’s children withering in the blast!
The sobbing wind, that through the forest moans,
Whispers--‘The spirit hath for ever passed!’
Thus, in the vale of desolation vast,
In moral death dark Afric’s myriads lie;
But the appointed day shall dawn at last,
When, breathed on by a spirit from on high,
The dry bones shall awake, and shout--
‘Our God is nigh!’
_Thomas Pringle._
COURTHOPE
CCXIV
ENGLAND IN SOUTH AFRICA
(1899)
Across the streaming flood, the deep ravine,
Through hurricanes of shot, through hells of fire,
To rocks where myriad marksmen lurk unseen,
The steadfast legions mount, mount always higher.
Earth and her elements protect the foe:
His are the covered trench, the ambushed hill,
The treacherous pit, the sudden secret blow,
The swift retreat--but ours the conquering will.
Against that will in vain the fatal lead,
Vain is the stubborn heart, brute cunning vain:
Strong in the triumphs of thy dauntless dead,
Advance, Imperial Race, advance and reign!
_William John Courthope._
HENLEY
CCXV
FOR A GRAVE IN SOUTH AFRICA
We cheered you forth--brilliant and kind and brave,
Under your country’s triumphing flag you fell;
It floats, true heart, over no dearer grave.
Brave and brilliant and kind, hail and farewell!
_William Ernest Henley._
HALL
CCXVI
ON LEAVING TABLE BAY
Sun-showered land! largess of golden light
Is thine; and well-befitting since the night
Of England voiced again
Canute’s command; ah, not in vain!
Backward the tides of savagery drew;
And still the bright sands gain
On the retreating main:
A lost world leaping to the light and blue.
In state the mountains greet an eve so fair,
And sunset-crowns and robes of purple wear:
A sea of glass the ocean, gold-inwrought--
Pathway apocalyptic. From the prow
A long bright ripple to the land is roll’d....
Haste thee and tell, tell of our love, with lips of gold,
In soft sea-music tell!
And thou, sweet bird, whose snowy wings have caught
The universal glory, carry thou
To that dear shore farewell--our hearts’ farewell!
_Arthur Vine Hall._
COOK
CCXVII
THE RELIEF OF MAFEKING
‘Well done!’ The cry goes ringing round the world,
O’er land and sea, wherever pulse throbs fast
At tales of courage, for relief at last
Is theirs and ours: so dawn’s bright flag unfurled
Hath challenge to the powers of darkness hurled,
And made one glory of the empyrean vast;
And when this day to history’s tome is passed
Its name shall stand on golden page impearled.
O God! our Help, our Hope, our Refuge strong
In days of trouble, still be Thou our Guide;
So shall we pass the coming days along
In certain trust whatever may betide,
And on Thine Empire shine the glorious sun
Till at last Thou say to her ‘Well done!’
_Hilda Mary Agnes Cook._
RUSSELL
CCXVIII
THE VANGUARD
(1842)
By the Boer lines at Congella,
Where the west wind sheds its rain,
All the yellow sands grew crimson
With the wounded and the slain.
Etched upon the deadly sky-line,
Mark for guns behind each dune,
Flashed the silver of the bayonets
In the lethal night’s high noon.
Far across the bay the booming
Of the cannon rose and fell;
Echoing to bluff and island,
Rang the soldier’s passing-bell.
Blood of England shed for Empire
At our southern Trasimene--
Such it is that fosters heroes,
Keeps the graves of valour green.
All life’s nobler thoughts are strengthened
By the valiance of our sires,
As it glows undimmed, undying,
Like Rome’s cherished vestal-fires.
Ever burning--happy omen
For the progress of the State!
Patriots give their lives as incense
On the altars reared by Fate.
Such pure light streamed o’er the cities
Of the pulsing Punic world;
Lit their galleys through the Pillars
Of the West, with sails unfurled.
In wild camps it thrilled Rome’s legions,
Stemmed the East at Marathon;
Bore sea-heroes through the Syrtes,
Through strange seas and tropic dawn.
Diaz and Da Gama snatched it
From their Lusitanian pyre;
Bore it over hungry surges
To the Cape of Storms and Fire;
And it gleamed upon our verdure
From their storm-vexed caravel--
Band of afternoon undying--
O’er tired visions cast its spell.
Clear the deathless flame was glowing
By the wide bay’s tender blue,
When their blood was shed for England
By the men of ’Forty-two.
_Robert Russell._
VIII
AUSTRALIA
SUPPLE
CCXIX
DAMPIER’S DREAM
The seaman slept--all nature sleeps; a sacred stillness there
Is on the wood--is on the waves--is in the silver air.
The sky above--the silent sea--with stars were all aglow;
There shone Orion and his belt--Arcturus and his bow!
The seaman slept--or does he sleep?--what chorus greets him now?--
Wild music breaking from the deep around the vessel’s bow?
He starts, he looks, he sees rise shadowy--can he only dream?
A sovereign form, wrathful, yet beauteous--in the moon’s cold beam!
‘Mortal, hath fallen my star in the hour
Of the dread eclipse, that thou scornest my power?
Herald thus soon of that mystic race
Fated to reign in my people’s place,
Bringing arts of might--working wondrous spells
Where now but the simple savage dwells;
Before whom my children shall pass away,
As the morntide passes before the day.
The time is not yet, why dost thou come,
The bale of thy presence to cast o’er my home?
Its shadow of doom is on air and waves--
E’en the still soft gloom of my deep sea caves
A shudder has reached; over shore and bay
Bodeful the shivering moonbeams play!
The Spirit of this zone am I--
Mine are the isles and yon mainlands nigh;
And roused from my rest by the wood-wraith’s sigh,
And the sea-maid’s moan on the coral reef--
Voices never till now foreboding grief--
Hither I fly--
Here at the gate of my South Sea realm
To bid thee put back thy fateful helm!
Not yet is the hour, why art thou here
Presaging dole, and scaith, and fear?’
Not yet is the time--
Woe-bringer, go back to thy cloud-wrapped clime!
Meeter for thee the drear Northern sky,
And where wintry breakers ceaseless roar,
And strew with wrecks a dusky shore;
Where the iceberg rears its awful form,
Where along the billows the petrels cry--
For, like thee, that dark bird loves the storm!
Thou child of the clime of the Vikings wild--
Who wert nursed upon the tempest’s wing,
A boy on the wind-beaten mast to cling--
Whose quest is prey, who hailest the day
When gleam the red swords and the death-bolts ring!
Thy joy is with restless men and seas,
What dost thou in scenes as soft as these?
The hour is not yet, but the doom appears
As I gaze thro’ the haze of long distant years.
A mighty people speaking thy tongue,
Sea-borne from their far, dark strands
Shall spread abroad over all these lands
Where man now lives as when Time was young.
I see their stately cities rise
Thro’ the clouds where the future’s horizon lies;
Thro’ the purple mists shrouding river and plain,
Where the white-foaming bay marks the hidden main;
And clearer now--I behold more clear
Great ships--sails swelling to the breeze,
Their keels break all the virgin seas;
Vast white-winged squadrons, they come and go
Where only has skimmed the light canoe!
Yes, the seats and the paths of empire veer,
A highway of nations will yet be here!
As Tyre was in an ancient age;
As Venice of palaces, strong and sage;
As the haughty ports of your native shore
Whose fleets override the waters’ rage,
So shall the pride of yon cities soar.
From the frigid Pole to the torrid Line,
Their sway shall stretch--their standards shine!’
_Gerald Henry Supple._
GORDON
CCXX
BY FLOOD AND FIELD
I remember the lowering wintry morn,
And the mist on the Cotswold hills,
Where I once heard the blast of the huntsman’s horn,
Not far from the seven rills.
Jack Esdale was there, and Hugh St. Clair,
Bob Chapman, and Andrew Kerr,
And big George Griffiths on Devil-May-Care,
And--black Tom Oliver.
And one who rode on a dark brown steed,
Clean-jointed, sinewy, spare,
With the lean game head of the Blacklock breed,
And the resolute eye that loves the lead,
And the quarters massive and square--
A tower of strength, with a promise of speed
(There was Celtic blood in the pair).