Works

Put the saddle on the mare,
For the wet winds blow;
There's winter in the air,
And autumn all below.
For the red leaves are flying
And the red bracken dying,
And the red fox lying...

(Coronation Year, 1911)


God save England, blessed by Fate,
So old, yet ever young:
The acorn isle from which the great
Imperial oak has sprung!
And God guard Scotland's kindly soil,...

[Being an humble address to Her Majesty's Naval advisers, who sold Nelson's old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.]

Who says the Nation's purse is lean,
Who fears for claim or bond or debt,...

Faith may break on reason,
Faith may prove a treason
To that highest gift
That is granted by Thy grace;
But Hope! Ah, let us cherish
Some spark that may not perish,
Some tiny spark to cheer us,...

Squire wants the bay horse,
For it is the best.
Squire holds the mortgage;
Where's the interest?
Haven't got the interest,
Can't raise a sou;
Shan't sell the bay horse,
Whatever he may do....

[Lost, with her crew of three hundred boys, on the last day of her voyage, March 23, 1876. She foundered off Portsmouth, from which town many of the boys came.]

Up with the royals that top the white spread of her!...

There's a keen and grim old huntsman
On a horse as white as snow;
Sometimes he is very swift
And sometimes he is slow.
But he never is at fault,
For he always hunts at view...

[''Ware Holes!' is the expression used in the hunting-field to warn those behind against rabbit-burrows or other suck dangers.]

A sportin' death! My word it was!
An' taken in a sportin' way....