Читать книгу The Young Guard - Hornung Ernest William - Страница 4

WHO is the one with the empty sleeve?"

"Some sport who was in the swim."

"And the one with the ribbon who's home on

leave?"

"Good Lord! I remember him!

A hulking fool, low down in the school,

And no good at games was he —

All fingers and thumbs – and very few chums.

(I wish he'd shake hands with me!)"

"Who is the one with the heavy stick,

Who seems to walk from the shoulder?"

"Why, many's the goal you have watched him

kick!"

"He's looking a lifetime older.

Who is the one that's so full of fun —

I never beheld a blither —

Yet his eyes are fixt as the furrow betwixt?"

"He cannot see out of either,"

"Who are the ones that we cannot see,

Though we feel them as near as near?

In Chapel one felt them bend the knee,

At the match one felt them cheer.

In the deep still shade of the Colonnade,

In the ringing quad's full light,

They are laughing here, they are chaffing there,

Yet never in sound or sight."

"Oh, those are the ones who never shall leave,

As they once were afraid they would!

They marched away from the school at eve,

But at dawn came back for good,

With deathless blooms from uncoffin'd tombs

To lay at our Founder's shrine.

As many are they as ourselves to-day,

And their place is yours and mine."

"But who are the ones they can help or harm?"

"Each small boy, never so new,

Has an Elder Brother to take his arm,

And show him the thing to do —

And the thing to resist with a doubled fist,

If he'd be nor knave nor fool —

And the Game to play if he'd tread the way

Of the School behind the school."