I stand and watch the soldiers
Marching up and down,
Above the fresh green cricket-ground
Just outside the town.
I stand and watch and wonder
When in the English land
This poor fool Tommy Atkins
Will learn and understand?
Zulus, and Boers, and Arabs,
All fighting to be free,
Men and women and children,
Murdered and maimed has he.
In India and in Ireland
He's held the People down,
While the robber English gentleman
Took pound and penny and crown.
To make him false to his order,
What was it that they gave--
To make him his brother's oppressor?
The clothes and pay of a slave!
O thou poor fool, Tommy Atkins,
Thou wilt be wise that day
When, with eager eyes and clenched teeth,
Thou risest up to say:
"_This is our well-loved England_,
_And I'll free it_, _if I can_,
_From every rotten bourgeois_
_And played-out gentleman_!"
IV.
"HAPPY VALLEY." {66}
There is a valley green that lies
'Mid hills, the summer's bower.
The many coloured butterflies
Flutter from flower to flower.
And round one lush green side of it,
In gardened homes are laid,
With grief and care compassionate,
The people of the dead.
There all the voicing summer day
They sing, the happy rills.
No noisy sound awakes away
The echo of the hills.