Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the field in clouded days, The forest-field of Shiloh – Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain Through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh – The church so lone, the log-built one, [...]

The cry went up for volunteers To join the battle van And then we gave three lusty cheers And said here’s Dauntless Dan! For years upon the football field He’s been well to the fore But to no living man he’ll yield In hatred of the Boer They tried his ardour for to damp By [...]

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest Uncoffined – just as found: His landmark is a kopje-crest That breaks the veldt around; And foreign constellations west Each night above his mound. Young Hodge the Drummer never knew – Fresh from his Wessex home – The meaning of the broad Karoo, The Bush, the dusty loam, [...]

There is a word you often see, pronounce it as you may – ‘You bike,’ ‘you bikwe,’ ‘ubbikwe’ – alludin’ to R.A. It serves ‘Orse, Field, an’ Garrison as motto for a crest, An’ when you’ve found out all it means I’ll tell you ‘alf the rest. Ubique means the long-range Krupp be’ind the low-range [...]

From kauri-clad Wairoa Rich in her tropic charms, – Otago’s rugged stations, – And Canterbury’s farms; From where the West Coast miners Toil for the coal and gold – From boiling Rotorua – From Southern Ranges cold – From hill and bay and headland, In all the country through – They rallied to the Red [...]

To you who’d read my songs of War And only hear of blood and fame, I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before) “War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same, Today I found in Mametz Wood A certain cure for lust of blood: Where, propped against a shattered trunk, In a great mess of things [...]

I was out early to-day, spying about From the top of a haystack – such a lovely morning – And when I mounted again to canter back I saw across a field in the broad sunlight A young Gunner Subaltern, stalking along With a rook-rifle held at the ready, and – would you believe it? [...]

All the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again. Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping. Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching [...]

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? – Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, – The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles [...]

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors Many’s a frozen night, and merrily Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores: ‘At Mrs Greenland’s Hawthorn Bush,’ said he, ‘I slept.’ None knew which bush. Above the town, Beyond ‘The Drover’, a hundred spot the down In Wiltshire. And where now at last he [...]