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Best Famous Colonel Poems

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Written by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot | Create an image from this poem

Gus: The Theatre Cat

 Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus.
That's such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake, And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.
Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats-- But no longer a terror to mice and to rats.
For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime; Though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time.
And whenever he joins his friends at their club (Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub) He loves to regale them, if someone else pays, With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.
For he once was a Star of the highest degree-- He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree.
And he likes to relate his success on the Halls, Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.
But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell, Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
"I have played," so he says, "every possible part, And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.
I'd extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag, And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag.
I knew how to act with my back and my tail; With an hour of rehearsal, I never could fail.
I'd a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts, Whether I took the lead, or in character parts.
I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell; When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell.
In the Pantomime season I never fell flat, And I once understudied Dick Whittington's Cat.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell, Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
" Then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin, He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne.
At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat, When some actor suggested the need for a cat.
He once played a Tiger--could do it again-- Which an Indian Colonel purused down a drain.
And he thinks that he still can, much better than most, Produce blood-curdling noises to bring on the Ghost.
And he once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire, To rescue a child when a house was on fire.
And he says: "Now then kittens, they do not get trained As we did in the days when Victoria reigned.
They never get drilled in a regular troupe, And they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop.
" And he'll say, as he scratches himself with his claws, "Well, the Theatre's certainly not what it was.
These modern productions are all very well, But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell, That moment of mystery When I made history As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
"


Written by Derek Walcott | Create an image from this poem

A Far Cry From Africa

 A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: "Waste no compassion on these separate dead!" Statistics justify and scholars seize The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed? To savages, expendable as Jews? Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break In a white dust of ibises whose cries Have wheeled since civilizations dawn >From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read As natural law, but upright man Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, While he calls courage still that native dread Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again A waste of our compassion, as with Spain, The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both, Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? I who have cursed The drunken officer of British rule, how choose Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? Betray them both, or give back what they give? How can I face such slaughter and be cool? How can I turn from Africa and live?
Written by Mark Doty | Create an image from this poem

Demolition

 The intact facade's now almost black 
in the rain; all day they've torn at the back 
of the building, "the oldest concrete structure 
in New England," the newspaper said.
By afternoon, when the backhoe claw appears above three stories of columns and cornices, the crowd beneath their massed umbrellas cheer.
Suddenly the stairs seem to climb down themselves, atomized plaster billowing: dust of 1907's rooming house, this year's bake shop and florist's, the ghosts of their signs faint above the windows lined, last week, with loaves and blooms.
We love disasters that have nothing to do with us: the metal scoop seems shy, tentative, a Japanese monster tilting its yellow head and considering what to topple next.
It's a weekday, and those of us with the leisure to watch are out of work, unemployable or academics, joined by a thirst for watching something fall.
All summer, at loose ends, I've read biographies, Wilde and Robert Lowell, and fallen asleep over a fallen hero lurching down a Paris boulevard, talking his way to dinner or a drink, unable to forget the vain and stupid boy he allowed to ruin him.
And I dreamed I was Lowell, in a manic flight of failing and ruthless energy, and understood how wrong I was with a passionate exactitude which had to be like his.
A month ago, at Saint-Gauden's house, we ran from a startling downpour into coincidence: under a loggia built for performances on the lawn hulked Shaw's monument, splendid in its plaster maquette, the ramrod-straight colonel high above his black troops.
We crouched on wet gravel and waited out the squall; the hieratic woman -- a wingless angel? -- floating horizontally above the soldiers, her robe billowing like plaster dust, seemed so far above us, another century's allegorical decor, an afterthought who'd never descend to the purely physical soldiers, the nearly breathing bronze ranks crushed into a terrible compression of perspective, as if the world hurried them into the ditch.
"The unreadable," Wilde said, "is what occurs.
" And when the brutish metal rears above the wall of unglazed windows -- where, in a week, the kids will skateboard in their lovely loops and spray their indecipherable ideograms across the parking lot -- the single standing wall seems Roman, momentarily, an aqueduct, all that's left of something difficult to understand now, something Oscar and Bosie might have posed before, for a photograph.
Aqueducts and angels, here on Main, seem merely souvenirs; the gaps where the windows opened once into transients' rooms are pure sky.
It's strange how much more beautiful the sky is to us when it's framed by these columned openings someone meant us to take for stone.
The enormous, articulate shovel nudges the highest row of moldings and the whole thing wavers as though we'd dreamed it, our black classic, and it topples all at once.
Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

Artilleryman's Vision The

 WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, 
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes, 
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, 
There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me: 
The engagement opens there and then, in fantasy unreal;
The skirmishers begin—they crawl cautiously ahead—I hear the irregular snap!
 snap! 
I hear the sounds of the different missiles—the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the
 rifle
 balls; 
I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds—I hear the great shells
 shrieking
 as
 they pass; 
The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick, tumultuous, now the
 contest
 rages!) 
All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me again;
The crashing and smoking—the pride of the men in their pieces; 
The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of the right time; 
After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the effect; 
—Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging—(the young colonel leads
 himself
 this
 time, with brandish’d sword;) 
I see the gaps cut by the enemy’s volleys, (quickly fill’d up, no delay;)
I breathe the suffocating smoke—then the flat clouds hover low, concealing all; 
Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side; 
Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of officers; 
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause,
 (some
 special success;) 
And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, (rousing, even in dreams, a devilish
 exultation,
 and
 all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul;)
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions—batteries, cavalry, moving
 hither
 and
 thither; 
(The falling, dying, I heed not—the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not—some
 to the
 rear
 are hobbling;) 
Grime, heat, rush—aid-de-camps galloping by, or on a full run; 
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision
 I
 hear or
 see,) 
And bombs busting in air, and at night the vari-color’d rockets.
Written by John Wilmot | Create an image from this poem

Tunbridge Wells

 At five this morn, when Phoebus raised his head
From Thetis' lap, I raised myself from bed,
And mounting steed, I trotted to the waters
The rendesvous of fools, buffoons, and praters,
Cuckolds, whores, citizens, their wives and daughters.
My squeamish stomach I with wine had bribed To undertake the dose that was prescribed; But turning head, a sudden curséd view That innocent provision overthrew, And without drinking, made me purge and spew.
From coach and six a thing unweildy rolled, Whose lumber, card more decently would hold.
As wise as calf it looked, as big as bully, But handled, proves a mere Sir Nicholas Cully; A bawling fop, a natural Nokes, and yet He dares to censure as if he had wit.
To make him more ridiculous, in spite Nature contrived the fool should be a knight.
Though he alone were dismal signet enough, His train contributed to set him off, All of his shape, all of the selfsame stuff.
No spleen or malice need on them be thrown: Nature has done the business of lampoon, And in their looks their characters has shown.
Endeavoring this irksome sight to balk, And a more irksome noise, their silly talk, I silently slunk down t' th' Lower Walk, But often when one would Charybdis shun, Down upon Scilla 'tis one's fate to run, For here it was my curséd luck to find As great a fop, though of another kind, A tall stiff fool that walked in Spanish guise: The buckram puppet never stirred its eyes, But grave as owl it looked, as woodcock wise.
He scorns the empty talking of this mad age, And speaks all proverbs, sentences, and adage; Can with as much solemnity buy eggs As a cabal can talk of their intrigues; Master o' th' Ceremonies, yet can dispense With the formality of talking sense.
From hence unto the upper walk I ran, Where a new scene of foppery began.
A tribe of curates, priests, canonical elves, Fit company for none besides themselves, Were got together.
Each his distemper told, Scurvy, stone, strangury; some were so bold To charge the spleen to be their misery, And on that wise disease brought infamy.
But none had modesty enough t' complain Their want of learning, honesty, and brain, The general diseases of that train.
These call themselves ambassadors of heaven, And saucily pretend commissions given; But should an Indian king, whose small command Seldom extends beyond ten miles of land, Send forth such wretched tools in an ambassage, He'd find but small effects of such a message.
Listening, I found the cob of all this rabble Pert Bays, with his importance comfortable.
He, being raised to an archdeaconry By trampling on religion, liberty, Was grown to great, and looked too fat and jolly, To be disturbed with care and melancholy, Though Marvell has enough exposed his folly.
He drank to carry off some old remains His lazy dull distemper left in 's veins.
Let him drink on, but 'tis not a whole flood Can give sufficient sweetness to his blood To make his nature of his manners good.
Next after these, a fulsome Irish crew Of silly Macs were offered to my view.
The things did talk, but th' hearing what they said I did myself the kindness to evade.
Nature has placed these wretches beneath scorn: They can't be called so vile as they are born.
Amidst the crowd next I myself conveyed, For now were come, whitewash and paint being laid, Mother and daughter, mistress and the maid, And squire with wig and pantaloon displayed.
But ne'er could conventicle, play, or fair For a true medley, with this herd compare.
Here lords, knights, squires, ladies and countesses, Chandlers, mum-bacon women, sempstresses Were mixed together, nor did they agree More in their humors than their quality.
Here waiting for gallant, young damsel stood, Leaning on cane, and muffled up in hood.
The would-be wit, whose business was to woo, With hat removed and solemn scrape of shoe Advanceth bowing, then genteelly shrugs, And ruffled foretop into order tugs, And thus accosts her: "Madam, methinks the weather Is grown much more serene since you came hither.
You influence the heavens; but should the sun Withdraw himself to see his rays outdone By your bright eyes, they would supply the morn, And make a day before the day be born.
" With mouth screwed up, conceited winking eyes, And breasts thrust forward, "Lord, sir!" she replies.
"It is your goodness, and not my deserts, Which makes you show this learning, wit, and parts.
" He, puzzled, butes his nail, both to display The sparkling ring, and think what next to say, And thus breaks forth afresh: "Madam, egad! Your luck at cards last night was very bad: At cribbage fifty-nine, and the next show To make the game, and yet to want those two.
God damn me, madam, I'm the son of a whore If in my life I saw the like before!" To peddler's stall he drags her, and her breast With hearts and such-like foolish toys he dressed; And then, more smartly to expound the riddle Of all his prattle, gives her a Scotch fiddle.
Tired with this dismal stuff, away I ran Where were two wives, with girl just fit for man - Short-breathed, with pallid lips and visage wan.
Some curtsies past, and the old compliment Of being glad to see each other, spent, With hand in hand they lovingly did walk, And one began thus to renew the talk: "I pray, good madam, if it may be thought No rudeness, what cause was it hither brought Your ladyship?" She soon replying, smiled, "We have a good estate, but have no child, And I'm informed these wells will make a barren Woman as fruitful as a cony warren.
" The first returned, "For this cause I am come, For I can have no quietness at home.
My husband grumbles though we have got one, This poor young girl, and mutters for a son.
And this is grieved with headache, pangs, and throes; Is full sixteen, and never yet had those.
" She soon replied, "Get her a husband, madam: I married at that age, and ne'er had 'em; Was just like her.
Steel waters let alone: A back of steel will bring 'em better down.
" And ten to one but they themselves will try The same means to increase their family.
Poor foolish fribble, who by subtlety Of midwife, truest friend to lechery, Persuaded art to be at pains and charge To give thy wife occasion to enlarge Thy silly head! For here walk Cuff and Kick, With brawny back and legs and potent prick, Who more substantially will cure thy wife, And on her half-dead womb bestow new life.
From these the waters got the reputation Of good assistants unto generation.
Some warlike men were now got into th' throng, With hair tied back, singing a bawdy song.
Not much afraid, I got a nearer view, And 'twas my chance to know the dreadful crew.
They were cadets, that seldom can appear: Damned to the stint of thirty pounds a year.
With hawk on fist, or greyhound led in hand, The dogs and footboys sometimes they command.
But now, having trimmed a cast-off spavined horse, With three hard-pinched-for guineas in their purse, Two rusty pistols, scarf about the ****, Coat lined with red, they here presume to swell: This goes for captain, that for colonel.
So the Bear Garden ape, on his steed mounted, No longer is a jackanapes accounted, But is, by virtue of his trumpery, then Called by the name of "the young gentleman.
" Bless me! thought I, what thing is man, that thus In all his shapes, he is ridiculous? Ourselves with noise of reason we do please In vain: humanity's our worst disease.
Thrice happy beasts are, who, because they be Of reason void, and so of foppery.
Faith, I was so ashamed that with remorse I used the insolence to mount my horse; For he, doing only things fit for his nature, Did seem to me by much the wiser creature.


Written by Mary Darby Robinson | Create an image from this poem

Ode to Valour

 Inscribed to Colonel Banastre Tarleton]


TRANSCENDENT VALOUR! ­godlike Pow'r! 
Lord of the dauntless breast, and stedfast mien! 
Who, rob'd in majesty sublime, 
Sat in thy eagle-wafted car, 
And led the hardy sons of war, 
With head erect, and eye serene, 
Amidst the arrowy show'r; 
When unsubdued, from clime to clime, 
YOUNG AMMON taught exulting Fame 
O'er earth's vast space to sound the glories of thy name.
ILLUSTRIOUS VALOUR ! from whose glance, Each recreant passion shrinks dismay'd; To whom benignant Heaven consign'd, All that can elevate the mind; 'Tis THINE, in radiant worth array'd, To rear thy glitt'ring helmet high, And with intrepid front, defy Stern FATE's uplifted arm, and desolating lance, When, from the CHAOS of primeval Night, This wond'rous ORB first sprung to light; And pois'd amid the sphery clime By strong Attraction's pow'r sublime, Its whirling course began; With sacred spells encompass'd round, Each element observ'd its bound, Earth's solid base, huge promontories bore; Curb'd OCEAN roar'd, clasp'd by the rocky shore; And midst metallic fires, translucent rivers ran.
All nature own'd th'OMNIPOTENT's command! Luxuriant blessings deck'd the vast domain; HE bade the budding branch expand; And from the teeming ground call'd forth the cherish'd grain; Salubrious springs from flinty caverns drew; Enamell'd verdure o'er the landscape threw; HE taught the scaly host to glide Sportive, amidst the limpid tide; HIS breath sustain'd the EAGLE's wing; With vocal sounds bade hills and valleys ring; Then, with his Word supreme, awoke to birth THE HUMAN FORM SUBLIME! THE SOV'REIGN LORD OF EARTH! VALOUR! thy pure and sacred flame Diffus'd its radiance o'er his mind; From THEE he learnt the fiery STEED to tame; And with a flow'ry band, the speckled PARD to bind; Guarded by Heaven's eternal shield, He taught each living thing to yield; Wond'ring, yet undismay'd he stood, To mark the SUN's fierce fires decay; Fearless, he saw the TYGER play; While at his stedfast gaze, the LION crouch'd subdued! From age to age on FAME's bright roll, Thy glorious attributes have shone! Thy influence soothes the soldier's pain, Whether beneath the freezing pole, Or basking in the torrid zone, Upon the barren thirsty plain.
Led by thy firm and daring hand, O'er wastes of snow, o'er burning sand, INTREPID TARLETON chas'd the foe, And smil'd in DEATH's grim face, and brav'd his with'ring blow! When late on CALPE's rock, stern VICT'RY stood, Hurling swift vengeance o'er the bounding flood; Each winged bolt illum'd a flame, IBERIA's vaunting sons to tame; While o'er the dark unfathom'd deep, The blasts of desolation blew, Fierce lightnings hov'ring round the frowning steep, 'Midst the wild waves their fatal arrows threw; Loud roar'd the cannon's voice with ceaseless ire, While the vast BULWARK glow'd,­a PYRAMID OF FIRE! Then in each BRITON's gallant breast, Benignant VIRTUE shone confest ! When Death spread wide his direful reign, And shrieks of horror echoed o'er the main; Eager they flew, their wretched foes to save From the dread precincts of a whelming grave; THEN, VALOUR was thy proudest hour! THEN, didst thou, like a radiant GOD, Check the keen rigours of th' avenging rod, And with soft MERCY's hand subdue the scourge of POW'R! When fading, in the grasp of Death, ILLUSTRIOUS WOLFE on earth's cold bosom lay; His anxious soldiers thronging round, Bath'd with their tears each gushing wound; As on his pallid lip the fleeting breath, In faint, and broken accents, stole away, Loud shouts of TRIUMPH fill'd the skies! To Heaven he rais'd his gratelul eyes; "'TIS VIC'TRY'S VOICE," the Hero cried! "I THANK THEE, BOUNTEOUS HEAVEN,"­then smiling, DIED! TARLETON, thy mind, above the POET's praise Asks not the labour'd task of flatt'ring lays! As the rare GEM with innate lustre glows, As round the OAK the gadding Ivy grows, So shall THY WORTH, in native radiance live! So shall the MUSE spontaneous incense give! Th' HISTORIC page shall prove a lasting shrine, Where Truth and Valour shall THY laurels twine; Where,with thy name, recording FAME shall blend The ZEALOUS PATRIOT, and the FAITHFUL FRIEND!
Written by Robert Lowell | Create an image from this poem

For the Union Dead

 "Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam.
" The old South Boston Aquarium stands in a Sahara of snow now.
Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.
Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass; my hand tingled to burst the bubbles drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.
My hand draws back.
I often sigh still for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom of the fish and reptile.
One morning last March, I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized fence on the Boston Common.
Behind their cage, yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting as they cropped up tons of mush and grass to gouge their underworld garage.
Parking spaces luxuriate like civic sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders braces the tingling Statehouse, shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw and his bell-cheeked ***** infantry on St.
Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief, propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake.
Two months after marching through Boston, half the regiment was dead; at the dedication, William James could almost hear the bronze ******* breathe.
Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is as lean as a compass-needle.
He has an angry wrenlike vigilance, a greyhound's gently tautness; he seems to wince at pleasure, and suffocate for privacy.
He is out of bounds now.
He rejoices in man's lovely, peculiar power to choose life and die-- when he leads his black soldiers to death, he cannot bend his back.
On a thousand small town New England greens, the old white churches hold their air of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier grow slimmer and younger each year-- wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets and muse through their sideburns .
.
.
Shaw's father wanted no monument except the ditch, where his son's body was thrown and lost with his "niggers.
" The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here; on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph shows Hiroshima boiling over a Mosler Safe, the "Rock of Ages" that survived the blast.
Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set, the drained faces of ***** school-children rise like balloons.
Colonel Shaw is riding on his bubble, he waits for the bless?d break.
The Aquarium is gone.
Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

Cholera Camp

 We've got the cholerer in camp -- it's worse than forty fights;
 We're dyin' in the wilderness the same as Isrulites;
It's before us, an' be'ind us, an' we cannot get away,
 An' the doctor's just reported we've ten more to-day!

Oh, strike your camp an' go, the Bugle's callin',
 The Rains are fallin' --
The dead are bushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe below;
The Band's a-doin' all she knows to cheer us;
The Chaplain's gone and prayed to Gawd to 'ear us --
 To 'ear us --
O Lord, for it's a-killin' of us so!

Since August, when it started, it's been stickin' to our tail,
Though they've 'ad us out by marches an' they've 'ad us back by rail;
But it runs as fast as troop-trains, and we cannot get away;
An' the sick-list to the Colonel makes ten more to-day.
There ain't no fun in women nor there ain't no bite to drink; It's much too wet for shootin', we can only march and think; An' at evenin', down the nullahs, we can 'ear the jackals say, "Get up, you rotten beggars, you've ten more to-day!" 'Twould make a monkey cough to see our way o' doin' things -- Lieutenants takin' companies an' captains takin' wings, An' Lances actin' Sergeants -- eight file to obey -- For we've lots o' quick promotion on ten deaths a day! Our Colonel's white an' twitterly -- 'e gets no sleep nor food, But mucks about in 'orspital where nothing does no good.
'E sends us 'eaps o' comforts, all bought from 'is pay -- But there aren't much comfort 'andy on ten deaths a day.
Our Chaplain's got a banjo, an' a skinny mule 'e rides, An' the stuff 'e says an' sings us, Lord, it makes us split our sides! With 'is black coat-tails a-bobbin' to Ta-ra-ra Boom-der-ay! 'E's the proper kind o' padre for ten deaths a day.
An' Father Victor 'elps 'im with our Roman Catholicks -- He knows an 'eap of Irish songs an' rummy conjurin' tricks; An' the two they works together when it comes to play or pray; So we keep the ball a-rollin' on ten deaths a day.
We've got the cholerer in camp -- we've got it 'ot an' sweet; It ain't no Christmas dinner, but it's 'elped an' we must eat.
We've gone beyond the funkin', 'cause we've found it doesn't pay, An' we're rockin' round the Districk on ten deaths a day! Then strike your camp an' go, the Rains are fallin', The Bugle's callin'! The dead are bushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe below! An' them that do not like it they can lump it, An' them that cannot stand it they can jump it; We've got to die somewhere -- some way -- some'ow -- We might as well begin to do it now! Then, Number One, let down the tent-pole slow, Knock out the pegs an' 'old the corners -- so! Fold in the flies, furl up the ropes, an' stow! Oh, strike -- oh, strike your camp an' go! (Gawd 'elp us!)
Written by Thomas Hardy | Create an image from this poem

The Alarm

 In Memory of one of the Writer's Family who was a Volunteer during the War
with Napoleon

In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.
'Twas hard to realize on This snug side the mute horizon That beyond it hostile armaments might steer, Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on A harnessed Volunteer.
In haste he'd flown there To his comely wife alone there, While marching south hard by, to still her fears, For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there In these campaigning years.
'Twas time to be Good-bying, Since the assembly-hour was nighing In royal George's town at six that morn; And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing Ere ring of bugle-horn.
"I've laid in food, Dear, And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear; And if our July hope should antedate, Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear, And fetch assistance straight.
"As for Buonaparte, forget him; He's not like to land! But let him, Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons! And the war-boats built to float him; 'twere but wanted to upset him A slat from Nelson's guns! "But, to assure thee, And of creeping fears to cure thee, If he should be rumored anchoring in the Road, Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure thee Till we've him safe-bestowed.
"Now, to turn to marching matters:-- I've my knapsack, firelock, spatters, Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay'net, blackball, clay, Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step clatters; .
.
.
My heart, Dear; that must stay!" --With breathings broken Farewell was kissed unspoken, And they parted there as morning stroked the panes; And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for token, And took the coastward lanes.
When above He'th Hills he found him, He saw, on gazing round him, The Barrow-Beacon burning--burning low, As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he'd homeward bound him; And it meant: Expect the Foe! Leaving the byway, And following swift the highway, Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland; "He's anchored, Soldier!" shouted some: "God save thee, marching thy way, Th'lt front him on the strand!" He slowed; he stopped; he paltered Awhile with self, and faltered, "Why courting misadventure shoreward roam? To Molly, surely! Seek the woods with her till times have altered; Charity favors home.
"Else, my denying He would come she'll read as lying-- Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes-- That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while trying My life to jeopardize.
"At home is stocked provision, And to-night, without suspicion, We might bear it with us to a covert near; Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ's remission, Though none forgive it here!" While thus he, thinking, A little bird, quick drinking Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore, Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh sinking, Near him, upon the moor.
He stepped in, reached, and seized it, And, preening, had released it But that a thought of Holy Writ occurred, And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had pleased it As guide to send the bird.
"O Lord, direct me!.
.
.
Doth Duty now expect me To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near? Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect me The southward or the rear.
" He loosed his clasp; when, rising, The bird--as if surmising-- Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom, And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising-- Prompted he wist by Whom.
Then on he panted By grim Mai-Don, and slanted Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt whiles, Till, nearing coast and harbor, he beheld the shore-line planted With Foot and Horse for miles.
Mistrusting not the omen, He gained the beach, where Yeomen, Militia, Fencibles, and Pikemen bold, With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen, Whose fleet had not yet shoaled.
Captain and Colonel, Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal, Were there, of neighbor-natives, Michel, Smith, Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued nocturnal Swoop on their land and kith.
But Buonaparte still tarried; His project had miscarried; At the last hour, equipped for victory, The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried By British strategy.
Homeward returning Anon, no beacons burning, No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss, Te Deum sang with wife and friends: "We praise Thee, Lord, discerning That Thou hast helped in this!"
Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Create an image from this poem

The Army Mules

 Oh the airman's game is a showman's game, for we all of us watch him go 
With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below, 
Over the railways and over the dumps, over the Hun and the Turk, 
You'll hear him mutter, "What ho, she bumps," when the Archies get to work.
But not of him is the song I sing, though he follow the eagle's flight, And with shrapnel holes in his splintered wing comes home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars, he may look from the throne on high, He may follow the flight of the wheeling kite in the blue Egyptian sky, But he's only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Army schools, And I sing of the rankless, thankless man who hustles the Army mules.
Now where he comes from and where he lives is a mystery dark and dim, And it's rarely indeed that the General gives a D.
S.
O.
to him.
The stolid infantry digs its way like a mole in a ruined wall; The cavalry lends a tone, they say, to what were else but a brawl; The Brigadier of the Mounted Fut like a cavalry Colonel swanks When he goeth abroad like a gilded nut to receive the General's thanks; The Ordnance man is a son of a gun and his lists are a standing joke; You order, "Choke arti Jerusalem one" for Jerusalem artichoke.
The Medicals shine with a number nine, and the men of the great R.
E.
, Their Colonels are Methodist, married or mad, and some of them all the three; In all these units the road to fame is taught by the Army schools, But a man has got to be born to the game when he tackles the Army mules.
For if you go where the depots are as the dawn is breaking grey, By the waning light of the morning star as the dust cloud clears away, You'll see a vision among the dust like a man and a mule combined -- It's the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren't defined, A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three legged stool, And you find its a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule.
And the rider sticks to the hybrid's hide like paper sticks to a wall, For a "magnoon" Waler is next to ride with every chance of a fall, It's a rough-house game and a thankless game, and it isn't a game for a fool, For an army's fate and a nation's fame may turn on an Army mule.
And if you go to the front-line camp where the sleepless outposts lie, At the dead of night you can hear the tramp of the mule train toiling by.
The rattle and clink of a leading-chain, the creak of the lurching load, As the patient, plodding creatures strain at their task in the shell-torn road, Through the dark and the dust you may watch them go till the dawn is grey in the sky, And only the watchful pickets know when the "All-night Corps" goes by.
And far away as the silence falls when the last of the train has gone, A weary voice through the darkness: "Get on there, men, get on!" It isn't a hero, built to plan, turned out by the modern schools, It's only the Army Service man a-driving his Army mules.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things