Читать книгу Writ in Barracks - Wallace Edgar - Страница 3
NICHOLSON'S NEK
ОглавлениеThey gave their best at Waterloo,
For the honour of England's name;
They threw their best on a hundred fields,
To put our foes to shame.
'Tis good that England's soldier men
To-day can do the same.
They have proved their worth,
To the ends of the earth.
They have striven and won, – and failed!
They have shown their might,
On the Dargai Height,
When the mollah's bullets hailed.
They have laid their dead,
In the river bed,
On the site of their last brave stand.
They have buried at night,
By a lantern light,
In a grave that they scooped in the sand.
And far and wide,
They have done and died,
By donga, and veldt, and kloof.
And the lonely grave,
Of the honoured brave,
Is a proof – if we need a proof,
They won – and died,
And we glorified
The men of the barrack schools.
They died – and failed,
And in wrath we railed
At the fault of the bungling fools!
And perhaps it is good
That we change our mood,
And perchance it is well to blame,
And to seek elsewhere,
For some men to bear,
The weight of our foolish shame.
But the fight hard fought,
Must it go for nought
Because of its hapless turn?
Must we then withhold,
For the life hard sold,
The Honour it died to earn?
When hot and tired,
With the last round fired,
And never a ray of hope —
What then the shame?
They were just the same
Who charged Talana's slope!
You may give and take,
As the shrapnels rake,
When your batt'ry has replied;
But you cannot live
When there's too much give,
From the guns on the open side.
Good men are they,
Who gain the day, —
And victory is sweet, —
And just as brave
Who do not rave
At every small defeat.
For the fight hard fought
Must not go for nought,
Because of its hapless turn;
Nor we withhold,
For the life hard sold,
The Honour it died to earn.
We gave our best at Waterloo,
For the honour of England's name;
We threw our best on a hundred fields
To put our foes to shame.
'Tis good that England's soldier men
To-day can do the same.
