Messmates
He gave us all a good-bye cheerily
At the first dawn of day;
We dropped him down the side full drearily
When the light died away.
It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a long, long night that lags a-creeping there,
Where the Trades and the tides roll over him
And the great ships go by.
He's there alone with green seas rocking him
For a thousand miles round;
He's there alone with dumb things mocking him,
And we're homeward bound.
It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a dead cold night that lags a-creeping there,
While the months and the years roll over him
And the great ships go by.
I wonder if the tramps come near enough
As they thrash to and fro,
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Hymn
In The Time Of War And Tumults
O Lord Almighty, Thou whose hands
Despair and victory give;
In whom, though tyrants tread their lands,
The souls of nations live;
Thou wilt not turn Thy face away
From those who work Thy will,
But send Thy peace on hearts that pray,
And guard Thy people still.
Remember not the days of shame,
The hands with rapine dyed,
The wavering will, the baser aim,
The brute material pride:
Remember, Lord, the years of faith,
The spirits humbly brave,
The strength that died defying death,
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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The Old and Bold
When England sets her banner forth
And bids her armour shine,
She'll not forget the famous North,
The lads of moor and Tyne;
And when the loving-cup's in hand
And Honour leads the cry,
They know not old Northumberland
Who'll pass her memory by.
When Nelson sailed for Trafalgar
With all his country's best,
He held them dear as brothers are,
But one beyond the rest.
For when the fleet with heroes manned
To clear the decks began,
The boast of old Northumberland
He sent to lead the van.
Himself by Victory's bulwark stood
And cheered to see the sight;
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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The Echo
Of A Ballad Sung By H. Plunket Greene To His Old School
Twice three hundred boys were we,
Long ago, long ago,
Where the Downs look out to the Severn Sea.
Clifton for aye!
We held by the game and hailed the team,
For many could play where few could dream.
City of Song shall stand alway.
Some were for profit and some for pride,
Long ago, long ago,
Some for the flag they lived and died.
Clifton for aye!
The work of the world must still be done,
And minds are many though truth be one.
City of Song shall stand alway.
But a lad there was to his fellows sang,
Long ago, long ago,
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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The Nightjar
We loved our nightjar, but she would not stay with us.
We had found her lying as dead, but soft and warm,
Under the apple tree beside the old thatched wall.
Two days we kept her in a basket by the fire,
Fed her, and thought she well might live – till suddenly
I the very moment of most confiding hope
She arised herself all tense, qivered and drooped and died.
Tears sprang into my eyes- why not? The heart of man
Soon sets itself to love a living companion,
The more so if by chance it asks some care of him.
And this one had the kind of loveliness that goes
Far deeper than the optic nerve- full fathom five
To the soul’socean cave, where Wonder and Reason
Tell their alternate dreams of how the world was made.
So wonderful she was-her wings the wings of night
But powdered here and therewith tiny golden clouds
And wave-line markings like sea-ripples on the sand.
O how I wish I might never forget that bird-
Never!
But even now, like all beauty of earth,
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Laudabunt Alii
(After Horace)
Let others praise, as fancy wills,
Berlin beneath her trees,
Or Rome upon her seven hills,
Or Venice by her seas;
Stamboul by double tides embraced,
Or green Damascus in the waste.
For me there's nought I would not leave
For the good Devon land,
Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve
Bedewed with spray-drift stand,
And hardly bear the red fruit up
That shall be next year's cider-cup.
You too, my friend, may wisely mark
How clear skies follow rain,
And, lingering in your own green park
Or drilled on Laffan's Plain,
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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The Vigil
England! where the sacred flame
Burns before the inmost shrine,
Where the lips that love thy name
Consecrate their hopes and thine,
Where the banners of thy dead
Weave their shadows overhead,
Watch beside thine arms to-night,
Pray that God defend the Right.
Think that when to-morrow comes
War shall claim command of all,
Thou must hear the roll of drums,
Thou must hear the trumpet's call.
Now, before thy silence ruth,
Commune with the voice of truth;
England! on thy knees to-night
Pray that God defend the Right.
Single-hearted, unafraid,
Hither all thy heroes came,
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Vitaï Lampada
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"
The sand of the desert is sodden red, --
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; --
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"
This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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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.
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Moonset
Past seven o'clock: time to be gone;
Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up:
A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup,
Down to the door, and there is Coachman John.
Ruddy of cheek is John and bright of eye;
But John it appears has none of your grins and winks;
Civil enough, but short: perhaps he thinks:
Words come once in a mile, and always dry.
Has he a mind or not? I wonder; but soon
We turn through a leafless wood, and there to the right,
Like a sun bewitched in alien realms of night,
Mellow and yellow and rounded hangs the moon.
Strangely near she seems, and terribly great:
The world is dead: why are we travelling still?
Nightmare silence grips my struggling will;
We are driving for ever and ever to find a gate.
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poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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