Collected Poems 1897 - 1907, by Henry Newbolt Part 5

When Mehtab Singh rode from the gate His chin was on his breast: The Captains said, "When the strong command Obedience is best."

The Guides at Cabul

(1879)

Sons of the Island race, wherever ye dwell, Who speak of your fathers' battles with lips that burn, The deed of an alien legion hear me tell, And think not shame from the hearts ye tamed to learn, When succour shall fail and the tide for a season turn, To fight with joyful courage, a pa.s.sionate pride, To die at last as the Guides of Cabul died.

For a handful of seventy men in a barrack of mud, Foodless, waterless, dwindling one by one, Answered a thousand yelling for English blood With stormy volleys that swept them gunner from gun, And charge on charge in the glare of the Afghan sun, Till the walls were shattered wherein they couched at bay, And dead or dying half of the seventy lay.

Twice they had taken the cannon that wrecked their hold, Twice toiled in vain to drag it back, Thrice they toiled, and alone, wary and bold, Whirling a hurricane sword to scatter the rack, Hamilton, last of the English, covered their track.

"Never give in!" he cried, and he heard them shout, And grappled with death as a man that knows not doubt.

And the Guides looked down from their smouldering barrack again, And behold, a banner of truce, and a voice that spoke: "Come, for we know that the English all are slain, We keep no feud with men of a kindred folk; Rejoice with us to be free of the conqueror's yolk."

Silence fell for a moment, then was heard A sound of laughter and scorn, and an answering word.

"Is it we or the lords we serve who have earned this wrong, That ye call us to flinch from the battle they bade us fight?

We that live--do ye doubt that our hands are strong?

They that are fallen--ye know that their blood was bright!

Think ye the Guides will barter for l.u.s.t of the light The pride of an ancient people in warfare bred, Honour of comrades living, and faith to the dead?"

Then the joy that spurs the warrior's heart To the last thundering gallop and sheer leap Came on the men of the Guides: they flung apart The doors not all their valour could longer keep; They dressed their slender line; they breathed deep, And with never a foot lagging or head bent To the clash and clamour and dust of death they went.

The Gay Gordons

(Dargai, October 20, 1897)

Whos for the Gathering, who's for the Fair?

(Gay goes the Gordon to a fight) The bravest of the brave are at deadlock there, (Highlanders! march! by the right!) There are bullets by the hundred buzzing in the air, There are bonny lads lying on the hillside bare; But the Gordons know what the Gordons dare When they hear the pipers playing!

The happiest English heart today (Gay goes the Gordon to a fight) Is the heart of the Colonel, hide it as he may; (Steady there! steady on the right!) He sees his work and he sees his way, He knows his time and the word to say, And he's thinking of the tune that the Gordons play When he sets the pipers playing.

Rising, roaring, rushing like the tide, (Gay goes the Gordon to a fight) They're up through the fire-zone, not be be denied; (Bayonets! and charge! by the right!) Thirty bullets straight where the rest went wide, And thirty lads are lying on the bare hillside; But they pa.s.sed in the hour of the Gordons' pride, To the skirl of the pipers' playing.

He Fell Among Thieves

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end, Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead: What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"

"Blood for our blood," they said.

He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five, I am ready; but let the reckoning stand til day: I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."

"You shall die at dawn," said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope, He climbed alone to the Eastward edge of the trees; All night long in a dream untroubled of hope He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills The ravine where the Ya.s.sin river sullenly flows; He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills, Or the far Afghan snows.

He saw the April noon on his books aglow, The wistaria trailing in at the window wide; He heard his father's voice from the terrace below Calling him down to ride.

He saw the gray little church across the park, The mounds that hid the loved and honoured dead; The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark, The bra.s.ses black and red.

He saw the School Close, sunny and green, The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall, The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between, His own name over all.

He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof, The long tables, and the faces merry and keen; The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof, The Dons on the das serene.

He watched the liner's stem ploughing the foam, He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw; He heard the pa.s.sengers' voices talking of home, He saw the flag she flew.

And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet, And strode to his ruined camp below the wood; He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet: His murderers round him stood.

Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast, The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to dazzling white: He turned, and saw the golden circle at last, Cut by the Eastern height.

"O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun, I have lived, I praise and adore Thee."

A sword swept.

Over the pa.s.s the voices one by one Faded, and the hill slept.

Ionicus

With failing feet and shoulders bowed Beneath the weight of happier days, He lagged among the heedless crowd, Or crept along suburban ways.

But still through all his heart was young, His mood a joy that nought could mar, A courage, a pride, a rapture, sprung Of the strength and splendour of England's war.

From ill-requited toil he turned To ride with Picton and with Pack, Among his grammars inly burned To storm the Afghan mountain-track.

When midnight chimed, before Quebec He watched with Wolfe till the morning star; At noon he saw from _Victory's_ deck The sweep and splendour of England's war.

Beyond the book his teaching sped, He left on whom he taught the trace Of kinship with the deathless dead, And faith in all the Island Race.

He pa.s.sed: his life a tangle seemed, His age from fame and power was far; But his heart was night to the end, and dreamed Of the sound and splendour of England's war.

The Non-Combatant

Among a race high-handed, strong of heart, Sea-rovers, conquerors, builders in the waste, He had his birth; a nature too complete, Eager and doubtful, no man's soldier sworn And no man's chosen captain; born to fail, A name without an echo: yet he too Within the cloister of his narrow days Fulfilled the ancestral rites, and kept alive The eternal fire; it may be, not in vain; For out of those who dropped a downward glance Upon the weakling huddled at his prayers, Perchance some looked beyond him, and then first Beheld the glory, and what shrine it filled, And to what Spirit sacred: or perchance Some heard him chanting, though but to himself, The old heroic names: and went their way: And hummed his music on the march to death.