Antarctic

What tale is this which stirs a world of knaves
Out of its grubbing to throw greasy pence
Forth to the hat, and choke with eloquence
In boastful prose and verse of doubtful staves?
Four men have died, gentlemen, heroes, braves;
Snows wrap them round eternally. From thence
They may no more return to life or sense
And a steel moon aches down on their chill graves.

"They died for England." It is excellent
To die for England. Death is oft the prize
Of him who bears the burden and the load.
So with a glory let our lives be spent --
We may be noble in the Minories
And die for England in the Camden Road.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, born on July 21, 1865, was an English author, poet, journalist, and friend of major literary figures such as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Crosland's writing encompassed a wide range of subjects, and he was known for his satirical works. His legacy includes a robust body of prose and poetry, which has been recognized for its wit and social critique. He died on December 23, 1924.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

To The American Invader

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To Mme. Bernhardt

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To Dan Leno

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To A Publisher

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

English

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The English Graves

Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world,
I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;
I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forth
How God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.
But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home,
Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome,
Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse,
At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.

For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes,
Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies,
The hundred little lands within one little land that lie,
Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Sussex scales the sky.

And what is theirs, though...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Killed

Lieutenant Keen was "great," and yet
He would look over the parapet;
And something smacked him in the head,
And he lay down as dead as dead.

He sluttered down, all proud and grim,
And we set to and buried him;
All night he lay and took his rest
With lumps of Flanders on his breast.

All day he lay in Flanders ground
And rested, rested, good and sound;
But when the dog-star glittered clear
He calls, "By Jove, it's dark down here!"

"Sergeant, ain't I for rounds?" sings he,
"And where's the bally Company?"
And he was answered, with respect,
"Here, sir -- all present and correct!"

And -- sure as I'm a man -- at night
He comes along the trench, as white
And cheerful as the blessèd saints,
To see if there was "no complaints."

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Battle Of Brunanburgh

Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the lindenwood,
Hack'd the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands.

Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes.

Bow'd the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,
Fell the shipcrews
Doom'd to the death.
All the field with blood of the fighters
Flow'd, from when first the great
Sun-star of morningtide,
Lamp of the Lord God
Lord everlasting,
Glode over earth till...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Presage Of Victory

I


Then first I knew, seeing that bent grey head,
How England honours all her thousand dead.
Then first I knew how faith through black grief burns,
Until the ruined heart glows while it yearns
For one that never more returns--
Glows in the spent embers of its pride
For one that careless lived and fearless died.
And then I knew, then first,
How everywhere Hope from her prison had burst--
On every hill, wide dale, soft valley's lap,
In lonely cottage clutch'd between huge downs,
And streets confused with streets in clanging towns--
Like spring from winter's jail pouring her sap
Into the idle wood of last year's trees.
Then first I knew how the vast world-disease
Would die away, and England upon her seas
Shake every scab of sickness; toward new sk...

John Frederick Freeman

The Vindictive

How should we praise those lads of the old Vindictive
    Who looked Death straight in the eyes,
        Till his gaze fell,
        In those red gates of hell?

England, in her proud history, proudly enrolls them,
    And the deep night in her remembering skies
        With purer glory
        Shall blazon their grim story.

There were no throngs to applaud that hushed adventure.
    They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise.
        The shores they sought
        Were armoured, past all thought.

O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it,
    With youth and its happiness bidding their last good-byes;
        Till thoughts, more dear
        Than life, cast out all fear.

    For if, as we think, they remembe...

Alfred Noyes

Charing Cross

At five o'clock they ring a tinkly bell;
The April dawn glimmers along the beds,
There is a lifting up of weary heads
From weary pillows. Our old citadel
Hath still held out, and while the miracle
Of morning is unbared again, and spreads
All the young East with greens and blues and reds
Each of us wakes to his particular hell.

But even on this bitter shore of Styx
Where Life to dogged Death puts the last schism,
We kindle for the ending of the dark:
The Asthma feebly jokes the Aneurism,
The little bandaged boy in Number Six
Sings "Ye shall die" with a voice like a lark.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland