Sir Henry John Newbolt

It fell in the year of Mutiny, At darkest of the night, John Nicholson by Jal'ndhar came,

The Forest above and the Combe below, On a bright September morn! He's the soul of a clod who thanks not God

With sanguine looks And rolling walk Among the rooks

Think not thy little fountain's rain That in the sunlight rose and flashed, From the bright sky has fallen again,

Boys, are ye calling a toast to-night? (Hear what the sea-wind saith) Fill for a bumper strong and bright,

Effingham, Grenville, Raleigh, Drake, Here's to the bold and free! Benbow, Collingwood, Byron, Blake,

Cities drowned in olden time Keep, they say, a magic chime Rolling up from far below

She is a lady fair and wise, Her heart her counsel keeps, And well she knows of time that flies

Since thou and I have wandered from the highway And found with hearts reborn This swift and unimaginable byway

'Tis hard to say if greater waste of time Is seen in writing or in reading rhyme; But, of the two, less dangerous it appears

Lad, and can you rest now, There beneath your hill! Your hands are on your breast now,

I left behind the ways of care, The crowded hurrying hours, I breathed again the woodland air,

I cannot tell, of twain beneath this bond, Which one in grief the other goes beyond,--- Narcissus, who to end the pain he bore

Though I see within thine eyes Sudden frown of cloudy skies, Yet I bid them "merry morn"

By the hearth-stone She sits alone, The long night bearing:

This is the Chapel: here, my son, Your father thought the thoughts of youth, And heard the words that one by one

I sat by the granite pillar, and sunlight fell Where the sunlight fell of old, And the hour was the hour my heart remembered well,

(Mobile Bay, 1864) Over the turret, shut in his iron-clad tower, Craven was conning his ship through smoke and flame;

Deep-wooded combes, clear-mounded hills of morn, Red sunset tides against a red sea-wall, High lonely barrows where the curlews call,

Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,

A MASQUE PRESENTED AT WILTON HOUSE, JULY 28, 1909 Scene.    A LAWN IN THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE'S ARCADIA

Her thought that, like a brook beside the way, Sang to my steps through all the wandering year, Has ceased from melody--O Love, allay

Praise thou with praise unending, The Master of the Wine; To all their portions sending

TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND Across the Western World, the Arabian Sea, The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three,

(After Martial) To-day, my friend is seventy-five; He tells his tale with no regret;

The Squire sat propped in a pillowed chair, His eyes were alive and clear of care, But well he knew that the hour was come

O youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain, In sight and hearing of thy father's cot, These and the morning woods, the lonely mountain,

Lover of England, stand awhile and gaze With thankful heart, and lips refrained from praise; They rest beyond the speech of human pride

O Son of mine, when dusk shall find thee bending Between a gravestone and a cradle's head--- Between the love whose name is loss unending

(Old French) Memories long in music sleeping, No more sleeping,

Riding at dawn, riding alone, Gillespie left the town behind; Before he turned by the Westward road

(AFTER GIOVANNI PASCOLI) At bedtime, when the sunset fire was red One cypress turned to gold beneath its touch.

In seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, When Hawke came swooping from the West, The French King's Admiral with twenty of the line,

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end, Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead: What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"

After long labouring in the windy ways, On smooth and shining tides Swiftly the great ship glides,

"Hark ye, hark to the winding horn; Sluggards, awake, and front the morn! Hark ye, hark to the winding horn;

In The Time Of War And Tumults O Lord Almighty, Thou whose hands Despair and victory give;

Alas! alas! what impious hands are these? They have cut down my dark mysterious trees, Defied the brooding spell

(A Lady of Tender Age) Ladies, where were your bright eyes glancing, Where were they glancing yester-night?

His beauty bore no token, No sign our gladness shook; With tender strength unbroken

With failing feet and shoulders bowed Beneath the weight of happier days, He lagged among the heedless crowd,

Down thy valleys, Ireland, Ireland, Down thy valleys green and sad, Still thy spirit wanders wailing,

(After Horace) Let others praise, as fancy wills, Berlin beneath her trees,

One day, when Love and Summer both were young, Love in a garden found my lady weeping; Whereat, when he to kiss her would have sprung,

Do ye ken hoo to fush for the salmon? If ye'll listen I'll tell ye. Dinna trust to the books and their gammon,

He gave us all a good-bye cheerily At the first dawn of day; We dropped him down the side full drearily

Turn back, my Soul, no longer set Thy peace upon the years to come Turn back, the land of thy regret

(The Dictionary Of National Biography) Sitting at times over a hearth that burns With dull domestic glow,

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,

Pilgrim, no shrine is here, no prison, no inn: Thy fear and thy belief alike are fond: Death is a gate, and holds no room within:

Whisper it not that late in years Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter, Life be freed of tremor and tears,

Whisper it not that late in years Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter, Life be freed of tremor and tears,

"The Old and Bold" When England sets her banner forth And bids her armour shine,

O Saint whose thousand shrines our feet have trod And our eyes loved thy lamp's eternal beam, Dim earthly radiance of the Unknown God,

"Partial firing continued until 4.30, when a victory having been reported to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., and Commander-in-Chief, he then died of his wound."--Log of the Victory, October 21, 1805. England! to-day let fire be in thine eyes And in thy heart the throb of leaping guns;

Foremost of all on battle's fiery steep Here VERTUE fell, and here he sleeps his sleep.* A fairer name no Roman ever gave

Time, when thou shalt bring again Pallas from the Trojan plain, Portia from the Roman's hall,

Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men, The land we sowed, The hearth that glowed---

No more to watch by Night's eternal shore, With England's chivalry at dawn to ride; No more defeat, faith, victory---O! no more

(After Martial) Bernard, if to you and me Fortune all at once should give

Grasshoppers four a-fiddling went, Heigh-ho! never be still! They earned but little towards their rent

Though I wander far-off ways, Dearest, never doubt thou me: Mine is not the love that strays,

Long ago to thee I gave Body, soul, and all I have--- Nothing in the world I keep:

MUKDEN, MARCH 6TH, 1905 Ye that with me have fought and failed and fought To the last desperate trench of battle's crest,

It was morning at St. Helen's, in the great and gallant days, And the sea beneath the sun glittered wide, When the frigate set her courses, all a-shimmer in the haze

"The sleep that Tippoo Sahib sleeps Heeds not the cry of man; The faith that Tippoo Sahib keeps

I He kneeled among a waste of sands Before the Mother-Maid,

Mother, with unbowed head Hear thou across the sea The farewell of the dead,

One by one the pale stars die before the day now, One by one the great ships are stirring from their sleep, Cables all are rumbling, anchors all a-weigh now,

Stand by to reckon up your battleships Ten, twenty, thirty, there they go. Brag about your cruisers like Leviathans--

In a blue dusk the ship astern Uplifts her slender spars, With golden lights that seem to burn

Oh hear!    Oh hear! Across the sullen tide Across the echoing dome horizon-wide

The sun was lost in a leaden sky, And the shore lay under our lee; When a great Sou' Wester hurricane high

Deep embowered beside the forest river, Where the flame of sunset only falls, Lapped in silence lies the House of Dying,

Over the downs in sunlight clear Forth we went in the spring of the year: Plunder of April's gold we sought,

It's good to see the school we knew, The land of youth and dream. To greet again the rule we knew

(1807) She's the daughter of the breeze, She's the darling of the seas,

(An Anthem Heard In Canterbury Cathedral) [The Organ] O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were

Scene: AN ENGLISH GARDEN BY STARLIGHT Persons: A LADY AND A POET THE POET

(August 7th, 1657) Laden with spoil of the South, fulfilled with the glory of achievement, And freshly crowned with never-dying fame,

Of A Ballad Sung By H. Plunket Greene To His Old School Twice three hundred boys were we, Long ago, long ago,

Yesterday I thought to roam Idly through the fields of home, And I came at morning's end

It was eight bells ringing, For the morning watch was done, And the gunner's lads were singing

This myth, of Egyptian origin, formed part of the instruction given to those initiated in the Orphic mysteries, and written versions of it were buried with the dead. Hear now, O Soul, the last command of all-- When thou hast left thine every mortal mark,

(Dargai, October 20, 1897) Whos for the Gathering, who's for the Fair? (Gay goes the Gordon to a fight)

"When Lieutenant Murray fell, the only words he spoke were, 'Forward, Grenadiers!'"---Press Telegram. Here they halted, here once more

(1879) Sons of the Island race, wherever ye dwell, Who speak of your fathers' battles with lips that burn,

"Drake, and Blake, and Nelson's mighty name." The stars were faint in heaven That saw the Old Year die,

While I within her secret garden walked, The flowers, that in her presence must be dumb, With me, their fellow-servant, softly talked,

Spring, they say, with his greenery Northward marches at last, Mustering thorn and elm;

(June 24th, 1902) In that eclipse of noon when joy was hushed Like the bird's song beneath unnatural night,

Before the April night was late A rider came to the castle gate; A rider breathing human breath,

Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady, Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady, And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour--

Out of the unknown South, Through the dark lands of drouth, Far wanders ancient Nile in slumber gliding:

Among a race high-handed, strong of heart, Sea-rovers, conquerors, builders in the waste, He had his birth; a nature too complete,

The wind was rising easterly, the morning sky was blue, The Straits before us opened wide and free; We looked towards the Admiral, where high the Peter flew,

O Bitter wind toward the sunset blowing, What of the dales to-night? In yonder gray old hall what fires are glowing,

I tramped among the townward throng A sultry summer's morn: They mocked me loud, they mocked me long,

When in the womb of Time our souls' own son Dear Love lay sleeping till his natal hour, Long months I knew not that sweet life begun,

We lay at St. Helen's, and easy she rode With one anchor catted and fresh-water stowed; When the barge came alongside like bullocks we roared,

Scene: ASHDOWN FOREST IN MAY Persons: H.--A POET; C.--HIS DAUGHTER H.    Here then, if you insist, my daughter: still,

(October, 1899) They saw the cables loosened, they saw the gangways cleared, They heard the women weeping, they heard the men that cheered;

Once, when beside me in that sacred place I saw my lady lift her lovely head, And saw the Chalice gleam above her face

All night before the brink of death In fitful sleep the army lay, For through the dream that stilled their breath

Our game was his but yesteryear; We wished him back; we could not know The self-same hour we missed him here

I. When late I watched the arrows of the sleet Against the windows of the Tavern beat,

England! where the sacred flame Burns before the inmost shrine, Where the lips that love thy name

When I thy lover first Shook out my canvas free And like a pirate burst

"He leapt to arms unbidden, Unneeded, over-bold; His face by earth is hidden,

To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west: "O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee A life to build, a love therein to nest,

(WITH A VOLUME OF STORIES FROM FROISSART) My Clare,-- These tales were told, you know,

(MARCH 31ST, 1909) 'Tis a sad fate To watch the world fighting,

Call me no more, O gentle stream, To wander through thy sunny dream, No more to lean at twilight cool

Beside the placid sea that mirrored her With the old glory of dawn that cannot die, The sleeping city began to moan and stir,

(June 21st, 1897*) A thousand years by sea and land Our race hath served the island kings,

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,

(FOURTEENTH CENTURY) "Time mocks thy opening music with a close; What now he gives long since he gave away.

Drake in the North Sea grimly prowling, Treading his dear Revenge's deck, Watched, with the sea-dogs round him growling,

When I remember that the day will come For this our love to quit his land of birth, And bid farewell to all the ways of earth

Among the woods and tillage That fringe the topmost downs, All lonely lies the village,

His song of dawn outsoars the joyful bird, Swift on the weary road his footfall comes; The dusty air that by his stride is stirred