Ionicus

With failing feet and shoulders bowed
    Beneath the weight of happier days,
He lagged among the heedless crowd,
    Or crept along suburban ways.
But still through all his heart was young,
    His mood a joy that nought could mar,
A courage, a pride, a rapture, sprung
    Of the strength and splendour of England's war.

From ill-requited toil he turned
    To ride with Picton and with Pack,
Among his grammars inly burned
    To storm the Afghan mountain-track.
When midnight chimed, before Quebec
    He watched with Wolfe till the morning star;
At noon he saw from Victory's deck
    The sweep and splendour of England's war.

Beyond the book his teaching sped,
    He left on whom he taught the trace
Of kinship with the deathless dead,
    And faith in all the Island Race.
He passed: his life a tangle seemed,
    His age from fame and power was far;
But his heart was night to the end, and dreamed
    Of the sound and splendour of England's war.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

Laudabunt Alii

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

The Volunteer

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Ode for Trafalgar Day, 1905

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

To Edward Fitzgerald

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

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TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND

    Across the Western World, the Arabian Sea,
    The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three,
    Beyond the rampart of Himalayan snows,
    And up the road that only Rumour knows,
    Unchecked, old friend, from Devon to Thibet,
    Friendship and Memory dog your footsteps yet.

    Let not the scornful ask me what avails
    So small a pack to follow mighty trails:
    Long since I saw what difference must be
    Between a stream like you, a ditch like me.
    This drains a garden and a homely field
    Which scarce at times a living current yield;
    The other from the high lands of his birth
    Plunges through rocks and spurns the pastoral earth,
    Then settling silent to his deeper course
    Draws in ...

Henry John Newbolt

He Fell Among Thieves

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,
    Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"
    "Blood for our blood," they said.

He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,
    I am ready; but let the reckoning stand til day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."
    "You shall die at dawn," said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
    He climbed alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
    He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
    The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows;
He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
    Or the far Afghan s...

Henry John Newbolt

The School At War

All night before the brink of death
    In fitful sleep the army lay,
For through the dream that stilled their breath
    Too gauntly glared the coming day.

But we, within whose blood there leaps
    The fulness of a life as wide
As Avon's water where he sweeps
    Seaward at last with Severn's tide,

We heard beyond the desert night
    The murmur of the fields we knew,
And our swift souls with one delight
    Like homing swallows Northward flew.

We played again the immortal games,
    And grappled with the fierce old friends,
And cheered the dead undying names,
    And sang the song that never ends;

Till, when the hard, familiar bell
    Told that the summer night was late,
Where long ago we said farewell
    We said far...

Henry John Newbolt

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.

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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...

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April On Waggon Hill

Lad, and can you rest now,
    There beneath your hill!
Your hands are on your breast now,
    But is your heart so still?
'Twas the right death to die, lad,
    A gift without regret,
But unless truth's a lie, lad,
    You dream of Devon yet.

Ay, ay, the year's awaking,
    The fire's among the ling,
The beechen hedge is breaking,
    The curlew's on the wing;
Primroses are out, lad,
    On the high banks of Lee,
And the sun stirs the trout, lad;
    From Brendon to the sea.

I know what's in your heart, lad,---
    The mare he used to hunt---
And her blue market-cart, lad,
    With posies tied in front---
We miss them from the moor road,
    They're getting old to roam,
The road they're on's a sure road
    And n...

Henry John Newbolt