Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,of him is the story told.His mercy fills the Khyber hills—his grace is manifold;He has taken toll of the North and the South—his glory reacheth far,And they tell the tale of his charityfrom Balkh to Kandahar.
Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet,The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street,And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife,Tho' he who held the longer purse might hold the longer life.
There was a hound of Hindustan had struck a Euzufzai,Wherefore they spat upon his face and led him out to die.It chanced the King went forth that hour when throat was bared to knife;The Kaffir grovelled under-hoof and clamoured for his life.
Then said the King: “Have hope, O friend! Yea, Death disgraced is hard;Much honour shall be thine”; and called the Captain of the Guard,Yar Khan, a bastard of the Blood, so city-babble saith,And he was honoured of the King—the which is salt to Death;And he was son of Daoud Shah, the Reiver of the Plains,And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins;And 'twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind,The King would make him butcher to a yelping cur of Hind.
“Strike!” said the King. “King's blood art thou—his death shall be hispride!”Then louder, that the crowd might catch: “Fear not—his arms are tied!”Yar Khan drew clear the Khyber knife, and struck, and sheathed again.“O man, thy will is done,” quoth he; “a King this dog hath slain.”Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,to the North and the South is sold.The North and the South shall open their mouthto a Ghilzai flag unrolled,When the big guns speak to the Khyber peak,and his dog-Heratis fly:Ye have heard the song—How long? How long?Wolves of the Abazai!That night before the watch was set, when all the streets were clear,The Governor of Kabul spoke: “My King, hast thou no fear?Thou knowest—thou hast heard,”—his speech died at his master's face.And grimly said the Afghan King: “I rule the Afghan race.My path is mine—see thou to thine—tonight upon thy bedThink who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head.”That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne,Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone.Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night,Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white.The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse's hoofs,The harlots of the town had hailed him “butcher!” from their roofs.But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,The King behind his shoulder spake: “Dead man, thou dost not well!'Tis ill to jest with Kings by day and seek a boon by night;And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write.“But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain,Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain.For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.“My butcher of the shambles, rest—no knife hast thou for me!”Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,holds hard by the South and the North;But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows,when the swollen banks break forth,When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall,and his Usbeg lances fail:Ye have heard the song—How long? How long?Wolves of the Zuka Kheyl!They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,According to the written word, “See that he do not die.”They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.
One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the batteredthing,And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.
It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath,“Creature of God, deliver me from agony of Death.”They sought the King among his girls, and risked their lives thereby:“Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!”“Bid him endure until the day,” a lagging answer came;“The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name.”Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more:“Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!”They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain,And when he heard the matchlocks clink, he blessed the King again.Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing,So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King.Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,of him is the story told,He has opened his mouth to the North and the South,they have stuffed his mouth with gold.Ye know the truth of his tender ruth—and sweet his favours are:Ye have heard the song—How long? How long?from Balkh to Kandahar.
When spring-time flushes the desert grass,Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.Lean are the camels but fat the frails,Light are the purses but heavy the bales,As the snowbound trade of the North comes downTo the market-square of Peshawur town.In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;And the bubbling camels beside the loadSprawled for a furlong adown the road;And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;And there fled on the wings of the gathering duskA savour of camels and carpets and musk,A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,The knives were whetted and—then came ITo Mahbub Ali the muleteer,Patching his bridles and counting his gear,Crammed with the gossip of half a year.But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,“Better is speech when the belly is fed.”So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deepIn a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,And he who never hath tasted the food,By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.Four things greater than all things are,—Women and Horses and Power and War.We spake of them all, but the last the most,For I sought a word of a Russian post,Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed swordAnd a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyesIn the fashion of one who is weaving lies.Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say?When the night is gathering all is gray.But we look that the gloom of the night shall dieIn the morning flush of a blood-red sky.“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wiseTo warn a King of his enemies?We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,But no man knoweth the mind of the King.“That unsought counsel is cursed of GodAttesteth the story of Wali Dad.“His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;And the colt bred close to the vice of each,For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.“Therewith madness—so that he soughtThe favour of kings at the Kabul court;And travelled, in hope of honour, farTo the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.“There have I journeyed too—but ISaw naught, said naught, and—did not die!He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breathOf 'this one knoweth' and 'that one saith',—Legends that ran from mouth to mouthOf a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.“These have I also heard—they passWith each new spring and the winter grass.“Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,Back to the city ran Wali Dad,Even to Kabul—in full durbarThe King held talk with his Chief in War.“Into the press of the crowd he broke,And what he had heard of the coming spoke.
“Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,As a mother might on a babbling child;But those who would laugh restrained their breath,When the face of the King showed dark as death.“Evil it is in full durbarTo cry to a ruler of gathering war!Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,That grew by a cleft of the city wall.“And he said to the boy: 'They shall praise thy zealSo long as the red spurt follows the steel.“'And the Russ is upon us even now?Great is thy prudence—await them, thou.Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong,Surely thy vigil is not for long.“'The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?Surely an hour shall bring their van.Wait and watch. When the host is near,Shout aloud that my men may hear.'“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wiseTo warn a King of his enemies?A guard was set that he might not flee—A score of bayonets ringed the tree.“The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,When he shook at his death as he looked below.By the power of God, who alone is great,Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.“Then madness took him, and men declareHe mowed in the branches as ape and bear,And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,And sleep the cord of his hands untied,And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.“Heart of my heart, is it meet or wiseTo warn a King of his enemies?We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,But no man knoweth the mind of the King.“Of the gray-coat coming who can say?When the night is gathering all is gray.“To things greater than all things are,The first is Love, and the second War.“And since we know not how War may prove,Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”
This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone,Erst a Pretender to Theebaw's throne,Who harried the district of Alalone:How he met with his fate and the V.P.P.At the hand of Harendra Mukerji,Senior Gomashta, G.B.T.Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold:His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold,And the Peacock Banner his henchmen boreWas stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weakFrom the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak:He crucified noble, he sacrificed mean,He filled old ladies with kerosene:While over the water the papers cried,“The patriot fights for his countryside!”But little they cared for the Native Press,The worn white soldiers in Khaki dress,Who tramped through the jungle and camped in the byre,Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire,Who gave up their lives, at the Queen's Command,For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land.Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da ThoneWas Captain O'Neil of the “Black Tyrone”,And his was a Company, seventy strong,Who hustled that dissolute Chief along.There were lads from Galway and Louth and MeathWho went to their death with a joke in their teeth,And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zealThe mud on the boot-heels of “Crook” O'Neil.But ever a blight on their labours lay,And ever their quarry would vanish away,Till the sun-dried boys of the Black TyroneTook a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone:And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.The word of a scout—a march by night—A rush through the mist—a scattering fight—A volley from cover—a corpse in the clearing—The glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring—The flare of a village—the tally of slain—And...the Boh was abroad “on the raid” again!They cursed their luck, as the Irish will,They gave him credit for cunning and skill,They buried their dead, they bolted their beef,And started anew on the track of the thiefTill, in place of the “Kalends of Greece”, men said,“When Crook and his darlings come back with the head.”They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain—He doubled and broke for the hills again:They had crippled his power for rapine and raid,They had routed him out of his pet stockade,And at last, they came, when the Day Star tired,To a camp deserted—a village fired.A black cross blistered the Morning-gold,And the body upon it was stark and cold.The wind of the dawn went merrily past,The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast.And out of the grass, on a sudden, brokeA spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke—And Captain O'Neil of the Black TyroneWas blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone—The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone.(Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wireIs a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)
The shot-wound festered—as shot-wounds mayIn a steaming barrack at Mandalay.The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore,“I'd like to be after the Boh once more!”The fever held him—the Captain said,“I'd give a hundred to look at his head!”The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred,But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank,That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.He thought of his wife and his High School son,He thought—but abandoned the thought—of a gun.His sleep was broken by visions dreadOf a shining Boh with a silver head.He kept his counsel and went his way,And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.
And the months went on, as the worst must do,And the Boh returned to the raid anew.But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife,And in far Simoorie had taken a wife.And she was a damsel of delicate mould,With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,And little she knew the arms that embracedHad cloven a man from the brow to the waist:And little she knew that the loving lipsHad ordered a quivering life's eclipse,And the eye that lit at her lightest breathHad glared unawed in the Gates of Death.(For these be matters a man would hide,As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)And little the Captain thought of the past,And, of all men, Babu Harendra last.
But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road,The Government Bullock Train toted its load.Speckless and spotless and shining with ghee,In the rearmost cart sat the Babu-jee.And ever a phantom before him fledOf a scowling Boh with a silver head.Then the lead-cart stuck, though the coolies slaved,And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved;And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals,Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!Then belching blunderbuss answered backThe Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack,And the blithe revolver began to singTo the blade that twanged on the locking-ring,And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed,As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,And the great white bullocks with onyx eyesWatched the souls of the dead arise,And over the smoke of the fusilladeThe Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may seeIs a well-worked rush on the G.B.T.!The Babu shook at the horrible sight,And girded his ponderous loins for flight,But Fate had ordained that the Boh should startOn a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe,The Babu fell—flat on the top of the Boh!For years had Harendra served the State,To the growth of his purse and the girth of hispet.There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows,On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.And twenty stone from a height dischargedAre bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.Oh, short was the struggle—severe was the shock—He dropped like a bullock—he lay like a block;And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear,Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.And thus in a fashion undignifiedThe princely pest of the Chindwin died.
Turn now to Simoorie where, lapped in his ease,The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's screamAre mixed as the mist of some devilish dream—Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shamblesWhere the hill-daisy blooms and the gray monkey gambols,From the sword-belt set free and released from the steel,The Peace of the Lord is with Captain O'Neil.
Up the hill to Simoorie—most patient of drudges—The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.“For Captain O'Neil, Sahib. One hundred and tenRupees to collect on delivery.”Then(Their breakfast was stopped while the screw-jack and hammerTore waxcloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer;)Open-eyed, open-mouthed, on the napery's snow,With a crash and a thud, rolled—the Head of the Boh!And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran:—“IN FIELDING FORCE SERVICE.“Encampment,“—th Jan.“Dear Sir,—I have honour to send, as you said,For final approval (see under) Boh's Head;“Was took by myself in most bloody affair.“By High Education brought pressure to bear.“Now violate Liberty, time being bad,To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred) Please add“Whatever Your Honour can pass. Price of BloodMuch cheap at one hundred, and children want food;“So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retainTrue love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,“And show awful kindness to satisfy me,I am,Graceful Master,YourH. MUKERJI.”
As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power,As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour,As a horse reaches up to the manger above,As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love,From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow,The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh.And e'en as he looked on the Thing where It lay'Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins' array,The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days—The hand-to-hand scuffle—the smoke and the blaze—The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn—The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn—The stench of the marshes—the raw, piercing smellWhen the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell—The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stoodWhere the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood.As a derelict ship drifts away with the tideThe Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,And men who had fought with O'Neil for the lifeHad gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.For she who had held him so long could not hold him—Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him—But watched the twin Terror—the head turned to head—The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red—The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew toSome grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing,And muttered aloud, “So you kept that jade earring!”Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend,“Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end.”
The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion:—“He took what I said in this horrible fashion,“I'll write to Harendra!” With language unsaintedThe Captain came back to the Bride...who had fainted.
And this is a fiction? No. Go to SimoorieAnd look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri,A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin—She's always about on the Mall of a mornin'—And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced,This: Gules upon argent, a Boh's Head, erased!
O woe is me for the merry lifeI led beyond the Bar,And a treble woe for my winsome wifeThat weeps at Shalimar.They have taken away my long jezail,My shield and sabre fine,And heaved me into the Central jailFor lifting of the kine.The steer may low within the byre,The Jat may tend his grain,But there'll be neither loot nor fireTill I come back again.And God have mercy on the JatWhen once my fetters fall,And Heaven defend the farmer's hutWhen I am loosed from thrall.It's woe to bend the stubborn backAbove the grinching quern,It's woe to hear the leg-bar clackAnd jingle when I turn!But for the sorrow and the shame,The brand on me and mine,I'll pay you back in leaping flameAnd loss of the butchered kine.For every cow I spared beforeIn charity set free,If I may reach my hold once moreI'll reive an honest three.For every time I raised the lowThat scared the dusty plain,By sword and cord, by torch and towI'll light the land with twain!Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai,Young Sahib with the yellow hair—Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie,Fat herds below Bonair!The one I'll shoot at twilight-tide,At dawn I'll drive the other;The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,The white man for his brother.'Tis war, red war, I'll give you then,War till my sinews fail;For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,And a thief of the Zukka Kheyl.And if I fall to your hand afreshI give you leave for the sin,That you cram my throat with the foul pig's flesh,And swing me in the skin!
This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious PaulJones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.
... At the close of a winter day,Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby,And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall,And he was Captain of the Fleet—the bravest of them all.Their good guns guarded their great gray sides that were thirty foot in thesheer,When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer.Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze,Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas.Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled,And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold.“I ha' paid Port dues for your Law,” quoth he, “and where is the Law ye boastIf I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast?Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk,We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk;I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fareTill I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre.“There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore,And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore.“He would not fly the Rovers' flag—the bloody or the black,But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack.He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew—he swore it was only a loan;But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own.“He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line,He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine;He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas,He has taken my grinning heathen gods—and what should he want o' these?My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats;He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats.“I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside,But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied.“Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm,I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm;I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw,And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw;I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark,I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark;I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil,And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil;I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasselled his beard i' themesh,And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through the gangrenedflesh;I had hove him down by the mangroves brown, where the mud-reef sucks anddraws,Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab's claws!He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose him far enow,For he carries the taint of a musky ship—the reek of the slaver's dhow!”The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold,And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold,And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt:—“Good Sir, we ha' dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut.“Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus:He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us.“We ha' sold him canvas and rope and spar—we know that his price is fair,And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre.“And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you,We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true.”The skipper called to the tall taffrail:—“And what is that to me?Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three?Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o'the Line?He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine.“There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in,But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a nigger's sin.“Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel?Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers? 'Fore Gad, then, why does hesteal?”The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet,For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet.But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began:—“We have heard a tale of a—foreign sail, but he is a merchantman.”The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon:—“'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!”By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air:—“We have sold our spars to the merchantman—we know that his price is fair.”The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm:—“They ha' rigged him a Joseph's jury-coat to keep his honour warm.”The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad,The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord.Masthead—masthead, the signal sped by the line o' the British craft;The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed:—“It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all—we'll out to the seas again—Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain.“It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea, and the swing of theunbought brine—We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line:Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer,Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer;Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty,Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea.“Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam—we stand on the outwardtack,We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade—the bezant is hard, ay,and black.“The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-LautHow a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port;How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains thereShall dip their flag to a slaver's rag—to show that his trade is fair!”
It was our war-ship ClampherdownWould sweep the Channel clean,Wherefore she kept her hatches closeWhen the merry Channel chops arose,To save the bleached marine.She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton,And a great stern-gun beside;They dipped their noses deep in the sea,They racked their stays and stanchions freeIn the wash of the wind-whipped tide.It was our war-ship Clampherdown,Fell in with a cruiser lightThat carried the dainty Hotchkiss gunAnd a pair o' heels wherewith to runFrom the grip of a close-fought fight.She opened fire at seven miles—As ye shoot at a bobbing cork—And once she fired and twice she fired,Till the bow-gun drooped like a lily tiredThat lolls upon the stalk.“Captain, the bow-gun melts apace,The deck-beams break below,'Twere well to rest for an hour or twain,And patch the shattered plates again.”And he answered, “Make it so.”She opened fire within the mile—As ye shoot at the flying duck—And the great stern-gun shot fair and true,With the heave of the ship, to the stainless blue,And the great stern-turret stuck.“Captain, the turret fills with steam,The feed-pipes burst below—You can hear the hiss of the helpless ram,You can hear the twisted runners jam.”And he answered, “Turn and go!”It was our war-ship Clampherdown,And grimly did she roll;Swung round to take the cruiser's fireAs the White Whale faces the Thresher's ireWhen they war by the frozen Pole.“Captain, the shells are falling fast,And faster still fall we;And it is not meet for English stockTo bide in the heart of an eight-day clockThe death they cannot see.”“Lie down, lie down, my bold A.B.,We drift upon her beam;We dare not ram, for she can run;And dare ye fire another gun,And die in the peeling steam?”It was our war-ship ClampherdownThat carried an armour-belt;But fifty feet at stern and bowLay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow,To the hail of the Nordenfeldt.“Captain, they hack us through and through;The chilled steel bolts are swift!We have emptied the bunkers in open sea,Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be.”And he answered, “Let her drift.”It was our war-ship Clampherdown,Swung round upon the tide,Her two dumb guns glared south and north,And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth,And she ground the cruiser's side.“Captain, they cry, the fight is done,They bid you send your sword.”And he answered, “Grapple her stern and bow.They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now;Out cutlasses and board!”It was our war-ship ClampherdownSpewed up four hundred men;And the scalded stokers yelped delight,As they rolled in the waist and heard the fightStamp o'er their steel-walled pen.They cleared the cruiser end to end,From conning-tower to hold.They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet;They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,As it was in the days of old.It was the sinking ClampherdownHeaved up her battered side—And carried a million pounds in steel,To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel,And the scour of the Channel tide.It was the crew of the ClampherdownStood out to sweep the sea,On a cruiser won from an ancient foe,As it was in the days of long ago,And as it still shall be.
Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away—We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;We put out from Sunderland—met the winter gales—Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray—Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by;Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo'c'sle short;Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly;Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul;Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll;Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray—So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay!'Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she'd break;Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock;Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake;Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block.Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal;Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul;Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day—Hi! we cursed the Bolivar—knocking round the Bay!O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still—Up and down and back we went, never time for breath;Then the money paid at Lloyd's caught her by the heel,And the stars ran round and round dancin' at our death.Aching for an hour's sleep, dozing off between;'Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green;'Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play—That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay.
Once we saw between the squalls, lyin' head to swell—Mad with work and weariness, wishin' they was we—Some damned Liner's lights go by like a long hotel;Cheered her from the Bolivar—swampin' in the sea.Then a grayback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed;“Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell—rig the winches aft!Yoke the kicking rudder-head—get her under way!”So we steered her, pulley-haul, out across the Bay!Just a pack o' rotten plates puttied up with tar,In we came, an' time enough, 'cross Bilbao Bar.Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, weEuchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!Seven men from all the world, back to town again,Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:Seven men from out of Hell. Ain't the owners gay,'Cause we took the “Bolivar” safe across the Bay?
Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack,remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimatelywhen it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts,and seemed to see significance in the incident.—DAILY PAPERS.
Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—And what should they know of England who only England know?—The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!Must we borrow a clout from the Boer—to plaster anew with dirt?An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share.What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!The North Wind blew:—“From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe;By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,And the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod.“I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.“The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light:What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!”The South Wind sighed:—“From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'enOver a thousand islands lost in an idle main,Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croonTheir endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon.“Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,I waked the palms to laughter—I tossed the scud in the breeze—Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.“I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn;I have chased it north to the Lizard—ribboned and rolled and torn;I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.“My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross,Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross.What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare,Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!”The East Wind roared:—“From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come,And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home.Look—look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoonI swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon!“The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before,I raped your richest roadstead—I plundered Singapore!I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose,And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows.“Never the lotus closes, never the wild-fowl wake,But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake—Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid—Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.“The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows,The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows.What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare,Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!”The West Wind called:—“In squadrons the thoughtless galleons flyThat bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath.“I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole,They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll,For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath,And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death.“But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day,I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away,First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky,Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.“The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it—the frozen dews have kissed—The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist.What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!”