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"Tis worth proclaiming.

Yea, it seems to me

This loyalty to death-lies close akin
To all the noblest human traits that be,
Engendered whence we know not—yet within
Choice spirits nobly gathered. Lo! we stand,
Needs must, against the world,

Yet war's alarms

Are nothing to our mightiest Motherland,
While Nation circles Nation in her arms!

John Renton Denning.

CCXI

SARANSAR

WHAT are the bugles saying

With a strain so long and so loud?
They say that a soldier's blanket
Is meet for a soldier's shroud!
They say that their hill-tossed music,
Blown forth of the living breath,
Is full of the victor's triumph

And sad with the wail of death!
Bugles of Talavera!

What are the bugles saying?

They tell of the falling night,
When a section of dog-tired English
Drew close for a rear-guard fight;
With an officer-boy to lead them,
A lost and an outflanked squad,
By the grace of a half-learned drill book,
And a prayer to the unseen God!
Bugles of Talavera!

What are the bugles saying

Of the stand that was heel to heel?
The click of the quick-pressed lever,
The glint of the naked steel,

The flame of the steady volley,
The hope that was almost gone,
As the leaping horde of the tribesmen
Swept as a tide sweeps on!
Bugles of Talavera!

What are the bugles saying?

They say that the teeth are set,
They say that the breath comes thicker,
And the blood-red Night is wet;

While the rough blunt speech of the English,
The burr of the shires afar,

Falls with a lone brave pathos
'Mid the hills of the Saransar!
Bugles of Talavera!

What are the bugles saying?

They say that the English there

Feel a breath from their island meadows
Like incense fill the air!

They say that they stood for a moment
With their dear ones by their side,
For their spirits swept to the Homeland
Before the English died!
Bugles of Talavera!

And aye are the bugles saying,

While the dust lies low i' the dust,
The strength of a strong man's fighting,
The crown of the soldier's trust-
The wine of a full-brimmed battle,
The peace of the quiet grave,

And a wreath from the hands of glory
Are the guerdon of the brave!
Bugles of Talavera!

John Renton Denning.

CCXII

THE GALLEY-SLAVE

O GALLANT was our galley from her carven steeringwheel

To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;

The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air,

But no galley on the water with our galley could compare!

Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold

We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the Hold; The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,

As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.

It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then

If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!

As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss,

And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lovers' kiss.

Our women and our children toiled beside us in the

dark

They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark—

We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley

sped

We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead.

Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit

gang were we

The servants of the sweep-head but the masters of the sea!

By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and sheered,

Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared?

Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew ;

Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through.

Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death?

Nay, our very babes would mock you had they time for idle breath.

But to-day I leave the galley and another takes my

place;

There's my name upon

little space.

the deck-beam-let it stand a

I am free to watch my messmates beating out to open main

Free of all that Life can offer-save to handle sweep

again.

By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel,

By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal;

By eyes grown old with staring through the sunwash on the brine,

I am paid in full for service-would that service still were mine!

Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth,

Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North.

When the niggers break the hatches and the decks are gay with gore,

And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore.

She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare,

When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there.

Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by,

To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die.

Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away

Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that

day,

When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath,

And the topmen clear the raffle with their claspknives in their teeth.

It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to

row once more

Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.

But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then?

God be thanked-whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with Men!

Rudyard Kipling.

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