The Young Guard

FORERUNNERS 1

(1900)

WHEN I lie dying in my bed,A grief to wife, and child, and friend, —How I shall grudge you gallant deadYour sudden, swift, heroic end!Dear hands will minister to me,Dear eyes deplore each shallower breath:You had your battle-cries, you three,To cheer and charm you to your death.You did not wane from worse to worst,Under coarse drug or futile knife,But in one grand mad moment burstFrom glorious life to glorious Life…These twenty years ago and more,'Mid purple heather and brown crag,Our whole school numbered scarce a score,And three have fallen for the Flag.You two have finished on one side,You who were friend and foe at play;Together you have done and died;But that was where you learnt the way.And the third face! I see it now,So delicate and pale and brave.The clear grey eye, the unruffled brow,Were ripening for a soldier's grave.Ah! gallant three, too young to die!The pity of it all endures.Yet, in my own poor passing, IShall lie and long for such as yours.

UPPINGHAM SONG

(1913)

AGES ago (as to-day they are reckoned)I was a lone little, blown little fag:Panting to heel when Authority beckoned,Spoiling to write for the Uppingham Mag.!Thirty years on seemed a terrible time then —Thirty years back seems a twelvemonth or so.Little I saw myself spinning this rhyme then —Less do I feel that it's ages ago!Ages ago that was Somebody's study;Somebody Else had the study next door.O their long walks in the fields dry or muddy!O their long talks in the evenings of yore!Still, when they meet, the old evergreen fellowsJaw in the jolly old jargon as thoughBoth were as slender and sound in the bellowsAs they were ages and ages ago!O but the ghosts at each turn I could showyou! —Ghosts in low collars and little cloth caps —Each of 'em now quite an elderly O.U. —Wiser, no doubt, and as pleasant – perhaps!That's where poor Jack lit the slide up withtollies,Once when the quad was a foot deep in snow —When a live Bishop was one of the Pollies 2 —Ages and ages and ages ago!Things that were Decent and things that wereRotten,How I remember them year after year!Some – it may be – that were better forgotten:Some that – it may be – should still draw atear…More, many more, that are good to remember:Yarns that grow richer, the older they grow:Deeds that would make a man's ultimate emberGlow with the fervour of ages ago!Did we play footer in funny long flannels?Had we no Corps to give zest to our drill?Never a Gym lined throughout with pine panels?Half of your best buildings were quarry-stonestill?Ah! but it's not for their looks that you lovethem,Not for the craft of the builder below,But for the spirit behind and above them —But for the Spirit of Ages Ago!Eton may rest on her Field and her River.Harrow has songs that she knows how to sing.Winchester slang makes the sensitive shiver.Rugby had Arnold, but never had Thring!Repton can put up as good an Eleven.Marlborough men are the fear of the foe.All that I wish to remark is – thank HeavenI was at Uppingham ages ago!

WOODEN CROSSES

(1917)

GO LIVE the wide world over – but when youcome to die,A quiet English churchyard is the only place tolie!I held it half a lifetime, until through war'smischanceI saw the wooden crosses that fret the fields ofFrance.A thrush sings in an oak-tree, and from the oldsquare towerA chime as sweet and mellow salutes the idle hour:Stone crosses take no notice – but the littlewooden onesAre thrilling every minute to the music of the guns!Upstanding at attention they face the cannonade,In apple-pie alinement like Guardsmen on parade:But Tombstones are Civilians who loll or sprawlor swayAt every crazy angle and stage of slow decay.For them the Broken Column – in its plot ofunkempt grass;The tawdry tinsel garland safeguarded underglass;And the Squire's emblazoned virtues, that wouldoverweight a Saint,On the vault empaled in iron – scaling red forwant of paint!The men who die for England don't need itrubbing in;An automatic stamper and a narrow strip of tinRecord their date and regiment, their number andtheir name —And the Squire who dies for England is treatedjust the same.So stand the still battalions: alert, austere, serene;Each with his just allowance of brown earth shotwith green;None better than his neighbour in pomp orcircumstance —All beads upon the rosary that turned the fate ofFrance!Who says their war is over? While others carryon,The little wooden crosses spell but the dead andgone?Not while they deck a sky-line, not while theycrown a view,Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teethanew!The tenants of the churchyard where the singingthrushes buildWere not, perhaps, all paragons of promise wellfulfilled:Some failed – through Love, or Liquor – while theparish looked askance.But – you cannot die a Failure if you win a Crossin France!The brightest gems of Valour in the Army'sdiademAre the V.C. and the D.S.O., M.C. and D.C.M.But those who live to wear them will tell youthey are drossBeside the Final Honour of a simple WoodenCross.

1

H. P. P. – F. M. J. W. A. C. St. Ninian's, Moffat, 1879-1880; South Africa, 1899-1900.

2

Præpostors.