Works

Legate, I had the news last night, my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:...

It was not in the open fight
We threw away the sword,
But in the lonely watching
In the darkness by the ford.
The waters lapped, the night-wind blew,
Full-armed the Fear was born and grew,...

The banked oars fell an hundred strong,
And backed and threshed and ground,
But bitter was the rowers' song
As they brought the war-boat round.


They had no heart for the rally and roar...

A smith makes me
To betray my Man
In my first fight.

To gather Gold
At the world's end
I am sent.

The Gold I gather
Comes into England
Out of deep Water.
...

News!
What is the word that they tell now, now, now!
The little drums beating in the bazaars?
They beat (among, the buyers and the sellers)
'Nimrud, ah, Nimrud!
God tends a gnat against Nimrud!'...

The Weald is good, the Downs are best,
I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry...

Now the New Year, reviving last Year's Debt,
The Thoughtful Fisher casteth wide his Net;
So I with begging Dish and ready Tongue
Assail all Men for all that I can get.
...

Strangers drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and plumed were we;
I was Lord of the Inca race, and she was Queen of the Sea.
Under the stars beyond our stars where the new-forged meteors glow,...

Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
Comes westward o'er the peaks to India.

The story of Bisesa, Armod's child,...

'Oh, show me how a rose can shut and be a bud again!'
Nay, watch my Lords of the Admiralty, for they have the work in train.
They have taken the men that were careless lads at Dartmouth in 'Fourteen...

Who hath desired the Sea?, the sight of salt wind-hounded,
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing,...

There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men
And casts them over sea.

And some are drowned in deep water,
And some in sight o' shore,...

We've sent our little Cupids all ashore,
They were frightened, they were tired, they were cold:
Our sails of silk and purple go to store,
And we've cut away our mast of beaten gold
(Foul weather!)...

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit,
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit....

'E was warned agin' 'er,
That's what made 'im look;
She was warned agin' 'im,
That is why she took.
'Wouldn't 'ear no reason,
'Went an' done it blind;
We know all about 'em,...

Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book,
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;...

'Tommy' you was when it began,
But now that it is o'er
You shall be called The Service Man
'Enceforward, evermore.

Batt'ry, brigade, flank, centre, van,
Defaulter, Army-corps,...

Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead.
Here, where the senseless bullet fell,...

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our bondage nor grieve,
See now, how it is blesseder,
Brothers, to give than receive!
Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
Paying the debt that we owe;...

Sez the Junior Orderly Sergeant
To the Senior Orderly Man:
"Our Orderly Orf'cer's ~hokee-mut~,
You 'elp 'im all you can.
For the wine was old and the night is cold,
An' the best we may go wrong,...