He perished with the folk he could not save,
And though none surely told us he is dead,
And though perchance another in his stead,
Another, not less brave, when all was done,
Had fled unto the southward and the sun,
Had urged a way by force, or won by guile
To streams remotest of the secret Nile,
Had raised an army of the Desert men,
And, waiting for his hour, had turned again
And fallen on that False Prophet, yet we know
GORDON is dead, and these things are not so!
Nay, not for England's cause, nor to restore
Her trampled flag--for he loved Honour more--
Nay, not for Life, Revenge, or Victory,
Would he have fled, whose hour had dawned to die.
He will not come again, whate'er our need,
He will not come, who is happy, being freed
From the deathly flesh and perishable things,
And lies of statesmen and rewards of kings.
Nay, somewhere by the sacred River's shore
He sleeps like those who shall return no more,
No more return for all the prayers of men--
Arthur and Charles--they never come again!
They shall not wake, though fair the vision seem:
Whate'er sick Hope may whisper, vain the dream!
_Lang._
CXXIII
MOTHER AND SON
It is not yours, O mother, to complain,
Not, mother, yours to weep,
Though nevermore your son again
Shall to your bosom creep,
Though nevermore again you watch your baby sleep.
Though in the greener paths of earth
Mother and child, no more
We wander; and no more the birth
Of me whom once you bore,
Seems still the brave reward that once it seemed of yore;
Though as all passes, day and night,
The seasons and the years,
From you, O mother, this delight,
This also disappears--
Some profit yet survives of all your pangs and tears.
The child, the seed, the grain of corn,
The acorn on the hill,
Each for some separate end is born
In season fit, and still
Each must in strength arise to work the Almighty will.
So from the hearth the children flee,
By that Almighty hand
Austerely led; so one by sea
Goes forth, and one by land;
Nor aught of all men's sons escapes from that command.
So from the sally each obeys
The unseen Almighty nod;
So till the ending all their ways
Blind-folded loth have trod:
Nor knew their task at all, but were the tools of God.
And as the fervent smith of yore
Beat out the glowing blade,
Nor wielded in the front of war
The weapons that he made,
But in the tower at home still plied his ringing trade;
So like a sword the son shall roam
On nobler missions sent;
And as the smith remained at home
In peaceful turret pent,
So sits the while at home the mother well content.
_Stevenson._
CXXIV
PRAYERS
God who created me
Nimble and light of limb,
In three elements free,
To run, to ride, to swim:
Not when the sense is dim,
But now from the heart of joy,
I would remember Him:
Take the thanks of a boy.
Jesu, King and Lord,
Whose are my foes to fight,
Gird me with Thy sword
Swift and sharp and bright.
Thee would I serve if I might;
And conquer if I can,
From day-dawn till night,
Take the strength of a man.
Spirit of Love and Truth,
Breathing in grosser clay,
The light and flame of youth,
Delight of men in the fray,
Wisdom in strength's decay;
From pain, strife, wrong to be free
This best gift I pray,
Take my spirit to Thee.
_Beeching._
CXXV
A BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST
Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side,
And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:
He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day,
And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.
Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides:
'Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?'
Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar,
'If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.
At dusk he harries the Abazai--at dawn he is into Bonair--
But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare,
So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,
By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tongue of
Jagai.
But if he be passed the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then,
For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain are sown with
Kamal's men.'
The Colonel's son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he,
With the mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell and the head of the
gallows-tree.
The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat--
Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat.
He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,
Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai,
Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back,
And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack.
He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.
'Ye shoot like a soldier,' Kamal said. 'Show now if ye can ride.'
It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dust-devils go,
The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.
The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above,
But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars as a lady plays with a
glove.
They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the
dawn,
The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn.
The dun he fell at a water-course--in a woful heap fell he,--
And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free.
He has knocked the pistol out of his hand--small room was there to
strive--
''Twas only by favour of mine,' quoth he, 'ye rode so long alive;
There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree,
But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.
If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low,
The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row;
If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,
The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly.'
Lightly answered the Colonel's son:--'Do good to bird and beast,
But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.
If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,
Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay.
They will feed their horse on the standing crop, their men on the
garnered grain,
The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are
slain.
But if thou thinkest the price be fair, and thy brethren wait to sup,
The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn,--howl, dog, and call them up!
And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,
Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back!'
Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.
'No talk shall be of dogs,' said he, 'when wolf and grey wolf meet.
May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath.
What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?'
Lightly answered the Colonel's son:--'I hold by the blood of my clan;
Take up the mare for my father's gift--By God she has carried a man!'
The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled her nose in his
breast,
'We be two strong men,' said Kamal then, 'but she loveth the younger
best.
So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise studded rein,
My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain.'
The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end,
'Ye have taken the one from a foe,' said he; 'will ye take the mate from
a friend?'
'A gift for a gift,' said Kamal straight; 'a limb for the risk of a limb.
Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!'
With that he whistled his only son, who dropped from a mountain-crest--
He trod the ling like a buck in spring and he looked like a lance in
rest.
'Now here is thy master,' Kamal said, 'who leads a troop of the Guides,
And thou must ride at his left side as shield to shoulder rides.
Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed,
Thy life is his--thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.
And thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine,
And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line,
And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power--
Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur.'
They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no
fault,
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and
salt;
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut
sod,
On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names
of God.
The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun,
And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.
And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear--
There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the
mountaineer.
'Ha' done! ha' done!' said the Colonel's son. 'Put up the steel at your
sides!
Last night ye had struck at a Border thief--to-night 'tis a man of the
Guides!'
Oh, east is east, and west is west, and never the two shall meet
Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat.
But there is neither east nor west, border or breed or birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends
of the earth.
_Kipling._
CXXVI
THE FLAG OF ENGLAND
Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro--
And what should they know of England who only England know?--
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English
Flag.
Must we borrow a clout from the Boer--to plaster anew with dirt?
An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?
We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share.
What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!
The North Wind blew:--'From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;
I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe;
By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,
And the liner splits on the ice-fields or the Dogger fills with cod.
I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,
Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;
I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,
And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.
The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,
The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light:
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,
Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!'
The South Wind sighed:--'From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en
Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main,
Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers
croon
Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon.
Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,
I waked the palms to laughter--I tossed the scud in the breeze--
Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
But over the scud and the palm trees an English flag was flown.
I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the
Horn;
I have chased it north to the Lizard--ribboned and rolled and torn;
I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;
I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.
My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross,
Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare,
Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!'
The East Wind roared:--'From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come,
And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home.
Look--look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoon
I swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon!
The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before,
I raped your richest roadstead--I plundered Singapore!
I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose,
And I heaved your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows.
Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake.
But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake--
Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid--
Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.
The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows,
The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare,
Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!'
The West Wind called:--'In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly
That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.
They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,
And I loose my neck from their service and whelm them all in my wrath.
I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole,
They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll:
For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath,
And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death.
But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day
I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away,
First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky,
Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.
The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it--the frozen dews have kissed--
The morning stars have hailed it, a fellow-star in the mist.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,
Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!'
_Kipling._
NOTES
I
This descant upon one of the most glorious feats of arms that
even England has achieved is selected and pieced together from
the magnificent verse assigned to the Chorus--'_Enter RUMOUR
painted full of tongues_'--to _King Henry V._, the noble piece of
pageantry produced in 1598, and a famous number from the _Poems
Lyrick and Pastorall_ (_circ._ 1605) of Michael Drayton. 'Look,'
says Ben Jonson, in his _Vision on the Muses of his Friend,
Michael Drayton_:--
Look how we read the Spartans were inflamed
With bold TyrtÊus' verse; when thou art named
So shall our English youths urge on, and cry
An AGINCOURT! an AGINCOURT! or die.
This, it is true, was in respect of another _Agincourt_, but
we need not hesitate to appropriate it to our own: in respect
of which--'To the Cambro-Britons and their Harp, His _Ballad
of Agincourt_,' is the poet's own description--it is to note
that Drayton had no model for it; that it remains wellnigh
unique in English letters for over two hundred years; and that,
despite such lapses into doggerel as the third stanza, and some
curious infelicities of diction which need not here be specified,
it remains, with a certain Sonnet, its author's chief title
to fame. Compare the ballads of _The Brave Lord Willoughby_
and _The Honour of Bristol_ in the seventeenth century, the
song of _The Arethusa_ in the eighteenth, and in the nineteenth
a choice of such TyrtÊan music as _The Battle of the Baltic_,
Lord Tennyson's _Ballad of the Fleet_, and _The Red Thread of
Honour_ of the late Sir Francis Doyle.
II
Originally _The True Character of a Happy Life_: written and
printed about 1614, and reprinted by Percy (1765) from the
_ReliquiÊ WottonianÊ_ of 1651. Says Drummond of Ben Jonson, 'Sir
Edward (_sic_) Wotton's verses of a Happy Life he hath by heart.'
Of Wotton himself it was reserved for Cowley to remark that
He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find,
And found them not so large as was his mind;
* * * * * *
And when he saw that he through all had passed
He died--lest he should idle grow at last.
See Izaak Walton, _Lives_.
III, IV
From _Underwoods_ (1640). The first, _An Ode_, is addressed to an
innominate not yet, I believe, identified. The second is part of
that _Ode to the Immortal Memory of that Heroic Pair, Sir Lucius
Cary and Sir Henry Morrison_, which is the first true Pindaric in
the language. Gifford ascribes it to 1629, when Sir Henry died,
but it seems not to have been printed before 1640. Sir Lucius
Cary is the Lord Falkland of Clarendon and Horace Walpole.
V
From _The Mad Lover_ (produced about 1618: published in 1640).
Compare the wooden imitations of Dryden in _Amboyna_ and
elsewhere.
VI
First printed, Mr. Bullen tells me, in 1640. Compare X. (Shirley,
_post_, p. 20), and the cry from Raleigh's _History of the World_:
'O Eloquent, Just, and Mighty Death! Whom none could advise,
thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done;
and whom all the World hath flattered, thou only hast cast out
of the World and despised: thou hast drawn together all the
far-stretched Greatness, all the Pride, Cruelty, and Ambition
of Man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words,
"_Hic Jacet_."'
VII, VIII
This pair of 'noble numbers,' of brilliant and fervent lyrics,
is from _Hesperides, or, The Works both Human and Divine of
Robert Herrich, Esq._ (1648).
IX
No. 61, '_Vertue_,' in _The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private
Ejaculations_, 1632-33. Compare Herbert to Christopher Farrer,
as reported by Izaak Walton:--'Tell him that I do not repine,
but am pleased with my want of health; and tell him, my heart
is fixed on that place where true joy is only to be found, and
that I long to be there, and do wait for my appointed change
with hope and patience.'
X
From _The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses_, printed 1659. Compare
VI. (Beaumont, _ante_, p. 15), and Bacon, _Essays_, 'On Death':
'But, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is _Nunc
dimittis_, when a man hath attained worthy ends and expectations.'
XI
Written in the November of 1637, and printed next year in the
_Obsequies to the Memorie of Mr. Edward King_. 'In this Monody,'
the title runs, 'the Author bewails a Learned Friend unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637. And
by occasion foretells the ruine of our corrupted Clergie, then
in their height.' King, who died at five- or six-and-twenty, was
a personal friend of Milton's, but the true accents of grief are
inaudible in _Lycidas_, which is, indeed, an example as perfect
as exists of Milton's capacity for turning whatever he touched
into pure poetry: an arrangement, that is, of 'the best words
in the best order'; or, to go still further than Coleridge, the
best words in the prescribed or inevitable sequence that makes
the arrangement art. For the innumerable allusions see Professor
Masson's edition of Milton (Macmillan, 1890), i. 187-201, and
iii. 254-276.
XII
The Eighth Sonnet (Masson): 'When the Assault was Intended to the
City.' Written in 1642, with Rupert and the King at Brentford,
and printed in the edition of 1645.
XIII
The Sixteenth Sonnet (Masson): 'To the Lord General Cromwell, May,
1652: On the Proposals of Certain Ministers at the Committee for
Propagation of the Gospel.' Printed by Philips, _Life of Milton_,
1694. In defence of the principle of Religious Voluntaryism,
and against the intolerant Fifteen Proposals of John Owen and
the majority of the Committee.
XIV
The Eighteenth Sonnet (Masson). 'Written in 1655,' says Masson,
and referring 'to the persecution instituted, in the early part
of the year, by Charles Emmanuel II., Duke of Savoy and Prince
of Piedmont, against his Protestant subjects of the valleys of
the Cottian Alps.' In January, an edict required them to turn
Romanists or quit the country out of hand; it was enforced with
such barbarity that Cromwell took the case of the sufferers in
hand; and so vigorous was his action that the Edict was withdrawn
and a convention was signed (August 1655) by which the Vaudois
were permitted to worship as they would. Printed in 1673.
XV
The Nineteenth Sonnet (Masson) 'may have been written any time
between 1652 and 1655,' the first years of Milton's blindness,
'but it follows the Sonnet on the Piedmontese Massacre in Milton's
own volume of 1673.'
XVI, XVII
From the choric parts of _Samson Agonistes_ (i.e. the Agonist,
or Wrestler), first printed in 1671.
XVIII
Of uncertain date; first printed by Watson 1706-11. The version
given here is Emerson's (which is shorter than the original), with
the exception of the last stanza, which is Napier's (_Montrose_,
i. Appendices). Napier is at great pains to prove that the
ballad is allegorical, and that Montrose's 'dear and only love'
was that unhappy King whose Epitaph, the famous _Great, Good,
and Just_, he is said--falsely--to have written with his sword. Be
this as it may, the verses have a second part, which has dropped
into oblivion. For the Great Marquis, who reminded De Retz of
the men in Plutarch's _Lives_, was not averse from the practice
of poetry, and wrote, besides these numbers, a prayer ('Let
them bestow on every airth a limb'), a 'pasquil,' a pleasant
string of conceits in praise of woman, a set of vehement and
fiery memorial stanzas on the King, and one copy of verses more.
XIX, XX
_To Lucasta going to the Wars_ and _To Althea from Prison_
are both, I believe, from Lovelace's _Lucasta_ (1645).
XXI
First printed by Captain Thomson, _Works_ (1776), from a copy
he held, on what seems excellent authority, to be in Marvell's
hand. The true title is _A Horatian Ode on Cromwell's Return
from Ireland_ (1650). It is always ascribed to Marvell (whose
verse was first collected and printed by his widow in 1681),
but there are faint doubts as to the authorship.
XXII
_Poems_ (1681). This elegant and romantic lyric appears to have
been inspired by a passage in the life of John Oxenbridge, of
whom, 'religionis causa oberrantem,' it is enough to note that,
after migrating to Bermudas, where he had a church, and being
'ejected' at the Restoration from an English cure, he went
to Surinam (1662-67), to Barbadoes (1667), and to New England
(1669), where he was made pastor of 'the First Church of Boston'
(1670), and where he died in 1674. These details are from Mr.
Grosart's _Marvell_ (1875), i. 82-85, and ii. 5-8.
XXIII
Dryden's second Ode for Saint Cecilia's Day, _Alexander's Feast,
or the Power of Sound_, as it is called, was written and printed
in 1697. As it was designed for music (it was set by Jeremiah
Clarke), the closing lines of every strophe are repeated by way
of chorus. I have removed these repetitions as impertinent to
the effect of the poem in print, and as interrupting the rushing
vehemency of the narrative. The incident described is the burning
of Persepolis.
XXIV
Written early in 1782, in memory of Robert Levett: 'an old and
faithful friend,' says Johnson, and withal 'a very useful and
very blameless man.' Excepting for the perfect odes of Cowper
(_post_, pp. 85, 86), in these excellent and affecting verses the
'classic' note is audible for the last time in this book until
we reach the _Iphigeneia_ of Walter Savage Landor, who was a
lad of seven at the date of their composition. They were written
seventeen years after the publication of the _Reliques_ (1765),
and a full quarter century after the appearance of _The Bard_
(1757); but in style they proceed from the age of Pope. For the
rest, the Augustan Muse was an utter stranger to the fighting
inspiration. Her gait was pedestrian, her purpose didactic, her
practice neat and formal: and she prosed of England's greatest
captain, the victor of Blenheim, as tamely as himself had been
'a parson in a tye-wig'--himself, and not the amiable man of
letters who acted as her amanuensis for the nonce.
XXV
_Chevy Chase_ is here preferred to _Otterbourne_ as appealing more
directly to Englishmen. The text is Percy's, and the movement like
that of all the English ballads, is jog-trot enough. Sidney's
confession--that he never heard it, even from a blind fiddler,
but it stirred him like the sound of a trumpet--refers, no doubt,
to an earlier version than the present, which appears to date from
the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Compare _The Brave
Lord Willoughby_ and _The Honour of Bristol_ (_post_, pp. 60, 73).
XXVI
First printed by Percy. The text I give is, with some few
variants, that of the vastly better version in _The Minstrelsy
of the Scottish Border_ (1802-3). Of the 'history' of the ballad
the less said the better. The argument is neatly summarised by
Mr. Allingham, p. 376 of _The Ballad Book_ ('Golden Treasury,'
1879).
skeely = _skilful_
white monie = _silver_
gane = _would suffice_
half-fou = _the eighth part of a peck_
gurly = _rough_
lap = _sprang_
bout = _bolt_
twine = _thread_, i.e. canvas
wap = _warp_
flattered = '_fluttered_, or rather, floated' (Scott)
kaims = _combs_
XXVII