“HAD he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
“I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although
“He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.
“Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.”
1902.
GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
(A MEMORY OF CHRISTIANA C—)
WHERE Blackmoor was, the road that led
To Bath, she could not show,
Nor point the sky that overspread
Towns ten miles off or so.
But that Calcutta stood this way,
Cape Horn there figured fell,
That here was Boston, here Bombay,
She could declare full well.
Less known to her the track athwart
Froom Mead or Yell’ham Wood
Than how to make some Austral port
In seas of surly mood.
She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore
Behind the plum-tree nigh,
Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar
In the weir’s purl hard by . . .
“My son’s a sailor, and he knows
All seas and many lands,
And when he’s home he points and shows
Each country where it stands.
“He’s now just there—by Gib’s high rock—
And when he gets, you see,
To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,
Then he’ll come back to me!”