An’ I see another tunin’ up to toot

  (Cornet: Toot! toot!) —

  So ‘ere’s good-luck to those that wears the Widow’s clo’es,

  An’ the Devil send ‘em all they want o’ loot!

  (Chorus) Yes, the loot,

  Bloomin’ loot!

  In the tunic an’ the mess-tin an’ the boot!

  It’s the same with dogs an’ men,

  If you’d make ‘em come again

  (fff) Whoop ‘em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!

  Heeya! Sick ‘im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!

  Lord Roberts

  1914

  He passed in the very battle-smoke

  Of the war that he had descried.

  Three hundred mile of cannon spoke

  When the Master-Gunner died.

  He passed to the very sound of the guns;

  But, before his eye grew dim,

  He had seen the faces of the sons

  Whose sires had served with him,

  He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted

  With the old sure word of praise;

  And there was virtue in touch and speech

  As it had been in old days.

  So he dismissed them and took his rest,

  And the steadfast spirit went forth

  Between the adoring East and West

  And the tireless guns of the North.

  Clean, simple, valiant, well-beloved,

  Flawless in faith and fame,

  Whom neither ease nor honours moved

  An hair’s-breadth from his aim.

  Never again the war-wise face,

  The weighed and urgent word

  That pleaded in the market-place-

  Pleaded and was not heard!

  Yet from his life a new life springs

  Through all the hosts to come,

  And Glory is the least of things

  That follow this man home.

  The Lost Legion

  1895

  There’s a Legion that never was listed,

  That carries no colours or crest,

  But, split in a thousand detachments,

  Is breaking the road for the rest.

  Our fathers they left us their blessing —

  They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;

  But we’ve shaken the Clubs and the Messes

  To go and find out and be damned

  (Dear boys!),

  To go and get shot and be damned.

  So some of us chivvy the slaver,

  And some of us cherish the black,

  And some of us hunt on the Oil Coast,

  And some on the Wallaby track:

  And some of us drift to Sarawak,

  And some of us drift up The Fly,

  And some share our tucker with tigers,

  And some with the gentle Masai,

  (Dear boys!),

  Take tea with the giddy Masai.

  We’ve painted The Islands vermilion,

  We’ve pearled on half-shares in the Bay,

  We’ve shouted on seven-ounce nuggets,

  We’ve starved on a Seedeeboy’s pay;

  We’ve laughed at the world as we found it, —

  Its women and cities and men —

  From Sayyid Burgash in a tantrum

  To the smoke-reddened eyes of Loben,

  (Dear boys!),

  We’ve a little account with Loben.

  The ends of the Farth were our portion,

  The ocean at large was our share.

  There was never a skirmish to windward

  But the Leaderless Legion was there:

  Yes, somehow and somewhere and always

  We were first when the trouble began,

  From a lottery-row in Manila,

  To an I. D. B. race on the Pan

  (Dear boys!),

  With the Mounted Police on the Pan.

  We preach in advance of the Army,

  We skirmish ahead of the Church,

  With never a gunboat to help us

  When we’re scuppered and left in the lurch.

  But we know as the cartridges finish,

  And we’re filed on our last little shelves,

  That the Legion that never was listed

  Will send us as good as ourselves

  (Good men!),

  Five hundred as good as ourselves!

  Then a health (we must drink it in whispers),

  To our wholly unauthorized horde —

  To the line of our dusty foreloopers,

  The Gentlemen Rovers abroad —

  Yes, a health to ourselves ere we scatter,

  For the steamer won’t wait for the train,

  And the Legion that never was listed

  Goes back into quarters again!

  ‘Regards!

  Goes back under canvas again.

  Hurrah!

  The swag and the billy again.

  Here’s how!

  The trail and the packhorse again.

  Salue!

  The trek and the laager again!

  The Lovers’ Litany

  Eyes of grey — a sodden quay,

  Driving rain and falling tears,

  As the steamer wears to sea

  In a parting storm of cheers.

  Sing, for Faith and Hope are high —

  None so true as you and I —

  Sing the Lovers’ Litany:

  “Love like ours can never die!”

  Eyes of black — a throbbing keel,

  Milky foam to left and right;

  Whispered converse near the wheel

  In the brilliant tropic night.

  Cross that rules the Southern Sky!

  Stars that sweep and wheel and fly,

  Hear the Lovers’ Litany:

  Love like ours can never die!”

  Eyes of brown — a dusy plain

  Split and parched with heat of June,

  Flying hoof and tightened rein,

  Hearts that beat the old, old tune.

  Side by side the horses fly,

  Frame we now the old reply

  Of the Lovers’ Litany:

  “Love like ours can never die!”

  Eyes of blue — the Simla Hills

  Silvered with the moonlight hoar;

  Pleading of the waltz that thrills,

  Dies and echoes round Benmore.

  “Mabel,” “Officers,” “Good-bye,”

  Glamour, wine, and witchery —

  On my soul’s sincerity,

  “Love like ours can never die!”

  Maidens of your charity,

  Pity my most luckless state.

  Four times Cipid’s debtor I —

  Bankrupt in quadruplicate.

  Yet, despite this evil case,

  And a maiden showed me grace,

  Four-and-forty times would I

  Sing the Lovers’ Litany:

  “Love like ours can never die!”

  The Love Song of Har Dyal

  “Beyond the Pale” — Plain Tales from the Hills

  Alone upon the housetops to the North

  I turn and watch the lightnings in the sky —

  The glamour of thy footsteps in the North.

  Come back to me, Beloved, or I die.

  Below my feet the still bazar is laid —

  Far, far below the weary camels lie —

  The camels and the captives of thy raid.

  Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

  My father’s wife is old and harsh with years,

  And drudge of all my father’s house am I —

  My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears.

  Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

  The Lowestoft Boat

  East Coast Patrols of the War

  1914-18

  Sea Warfare

  In Lowestoft a boat was laid,

  Mark well what I do say!

  And she was built for the herring-trade,

  But she has gone a-rovin’, a-rovin’, a-rovin’,

  The Lord knows where!

  They gave her Government coal to burn,

  And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern,

  And sent her out a-rovin’, etc.

  Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship

  Which always killed one man per trip,

  So he is used to rovin’, etc.

  Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales,

  And so he fights in topper and tails —

  Religi-ous tho’ rovin’, etc.

  Her engineer is fifty-eight,’

  So he’s prepared to meet his fate,

  Which ain’t unlikely rovin’, etc.

  Her leading-stoker’s seventeen,

  So he don’t know what the Judgments mean,

  Unless he cops ‘em rovin’, etc.

  Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs’ Home,

  Mark well what I do say!

  And I’m sorry for Fritz when they all come

  A-rovin’, a-rovin’, a-roarin’ and a-rovin’,

  Round the North Sea rovin’,

  The Lord knows where!

  Lukannon

  I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!)

  Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell rolled;

  I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the breakers’ song —

  The beaches of Lukannon — two million voices strong!

  The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons,

  The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the dunes,

  The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to flame —

  The beaches of Lukannon — before the sealers came!

  I met my mates in the morning (I’ll never meet them more!);

  They came and went in legions that darkened all the shore.

  And through the foam-flecked offing as far as voice could reach

  We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up the beach.

  The beaches of Lukannon — the winter-wheat so tall —

  The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog drenching all!

  The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth and worn!

  The beaches of Lukannon — the home where we were born!

  I meet my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered band.

  Men shoot us in the water and club us on the land;

  Men drive us to the Salt House like silly sheep and tame,

  And still we sing Lukannon — before the sealers came.

  Wheel down, wheel down to southward; oh, Gooverooska go!

  And tell the Deep-Sea Viceroys! the story of our woe;

  Ere, empty as the shark’s egg the tempest flings ashore,

  The beaches of Lukannon shall know their sons no more!

  At the hole where he went in

  Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin.

  Hear what little Red-Eye saith:

  “Nag, come up and dance with death!”

  Eye to eye and head to head,

  (Keep the measure, Nag.)

  This shall end when one is dead;

  (At thy pleasure, Nag.)

  Turn for turn and twist for twist —

  (Run and hide thee, Nag.)

  Hah! The hooded Death has missed!

  (Woe betide thee, Nag!)

  Macdonough’s Song

  “As easy as A B C” — A Diversity of Creatures”

  Whether the State can loose and bind

  In Heaven as well as on Earth:

  If it be wiser to kill mankind

  Before or after the birth —

  These are matters of high concern

  Where State-kept schoolmen are;

  But Holy State (we have lived to learn)

  Endeth in Holy War.

  Whether The People be led by The Lord,

  Or lured by the loudest throat:

  If it be quicker to die by the sword

  Or cheaper to die by vote —

  These are things we have dealt with once,

  (And they will not rise from their grave)

  For Holy People, however it runs,

  Endeth in wholly Slave.

  Whatsoever, for any cause,

  Seeketh to take or give

  Power above or beyond the Laws,

  Suffer it not to live!

  Holy State or Holy King —

  Or Holy People’s Will —

  Have no truck with the senseless thing.

  Order the guns and kill!

  Saying — after — me: —

  Once there was The People — Terror gave it birth;

  Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth

  Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain!

  Once there was The People — it shall never be again!

  The Man Who Could Write

  Shun — shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink

  Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in ‘t;

  Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink

  Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in ‘t.

  There may be silver in the “blue-black” — all

  I know of is the iron and the gall.

  Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,

  Is a dismal failure — is a Might-have-been.

  In a luckless moment he discovered men

  Rise to high position through a ready pen.

  Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore — “I,

  With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high.”

  Only he did not possess when he made the trial,

  Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L — l.

  [Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows,

  Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]

  Never young Civilian’s prospects were so bright,

  Till an Indian paper found that he could write:

  Never young Civilian’s prospects were so dark,

  When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark.

  Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm,

  In that Indian paper — made his seniors squirm,

  Quated office scandals, wrote the tactless truth —

  Was there ever known a more misguided youth?

  When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game,

  Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame;

  When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore,

  Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more:

  Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim,

  Till he found promotion didn’t come to him;

  Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot,

  And his many Districts curiously hot.

  Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win,

  Boanerges Blitzen didn’t care to pin:

  Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn’t right —

  Boanerges Blitzen put it down to “spite”;

  Languished in a District desolate and dry;

  Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by;

  Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair.

  . . . . .

  That was seven years ago — and he still is there!

  Mandalay

  By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,

  There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;

  For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

  “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”

  Come you back to Mandalay,

  Where the old Flotilla lay:

  Can’t you ‘ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay?

  On the road to Mandalay,

  Where the flyin’-fishes play,

  An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!

  ‘Er petticoat was yaller an’ ‘er little cap was green,

  An’ ‘er name was Supi-yaw-lat — jes’ the same as Theebaw’s Queen,

  An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot,

  An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ‘eathen idol’s foot:

  Bloomin’ idol made o’mud —

  Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd —

  Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ‘er where she stud!

  On the road to Mandalay . . .

  When the mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was droppin’ slow,

  She’d git ‘er little banjo an’ she’d sing “Kulla-lo-lo!”

  With ‘er arm upon my shoulder an’ ‘er cheek agin’ my cheek

  We useter watch the steamers an’ the hathis pilin’ teak.

  Elephints a-pilin’ teak

  In the sludgy, squdgy creek,

  Where the silence ‘ung that ‘eavy you was ‘arf afraid to speak!

  On the road to Mandalay . . .

  But that’s all shove be’ind me — long ago an’ fur away,

  An’ there ain’t no ‘busses runnin’ from the Bank to Mandalay;

  An’ I’m learnin’ ‘ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:

  “If you’ve ‘eard the East a-callin’, you won’t never ‘eed naught else.”

  No! you won’t ‘eed nothin’ else

  But them spicy garlic smells,

  An’ the sunshine an’ the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells;

  On the road to Mandalay . . .

  I am sick o’ wastin’ leather on these gritty pavin’-stones,

  An’ the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;

  Tho’ I walks with fifty ‘ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,

  An’ they talks a lot o’ lovin’, but wot do they understand?

  Beefy face an’ grubby ‘and —

  Law! wot do they understand?

  I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003