Collected Poems 1897 - 1907 | Page 9

When succour shall
fail and the tide for a season turn, To fight with joyful courage, a
passionate 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 lust 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 passed 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
Yassin 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 brasses 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