On Spion Kop

Foremost of all on battle's fiery steep
    Here VERTUE fell, and here he sleeps his sleep.*
A fairer name no Roman ever gave
    To stand sole monument on Valour's grave.

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

Gavotte

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Fond Counsel

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Rondel*

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

By The Hearth-Stone

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Our Heroic Dead.

I.

A King once said of a Prince struck down,
"Taller he seems in death."
And this speech holds truth, for now as then
'Tis after death that we measure men,
And as mists of the past are rolled away
Our heroes, who died in their tattered grey,
Grow "taller" and greater in all their parts
Till they fill our minds as they fill our hearts.
And for those who lament them there's this relief -
That Glory sits by the side of Grief,
Yes, they grow "taller" as the years pass by
And the World learns how they could do and die.


II.

A Nation respects them. The East and West,
The far-off slope of the Golden Coast,
The stricken South and the North agree
That the heroes who died for you and me -
Each valiant man, in his own degree,
Whether...

James Barron Hope

Devon

    Deep-wooded combes, clear-mounded hills of morn,
        Red sunset tides against a red sea-wall,
        High lonely barrows where the curlews call,
    Far moors that echo to the ringing horn,--
    Devon! thou spirit of all these beauties born,
        All these are thine, but thou art more than all:
        Speech can but tell thy name, praise can but fall
    Beneath the cold white sea-mist of thy scorn.

    Yet, yet, O noble land, forbid us not
        Even now to join our faint memorial chime
    To the fierce chant wherewith their hearts were hot
        Who took the tide in thy Imperial prime;
    Whose glory's thine till Glory sleeps forgot
        With her ancestral phantoms, Pride and Time.

Henry John Newbolt

Stonewall Jackson's Grave.[A]

A simple, sodded mound of earth,
    Without a line above it;
With only daily votive flowers
    To prove that any love it:
The token flag that silently
    Each breeze's visit numbers,
Alone keeps martial ward above
    The hero's dreamless slumbers.

No name? - no record? Ask the world;
    The world has read his story -
If all its annals can unfold
    A prouder tale of glory: -
If ever merely human life
    Hath taught diviner moral, -
If ever round a worthier brow
    Was twined a purer laurel!

A twelvemonth only, since his sword
    Went flashing through the battle -
A twelvemonth only, since his ear
    Heard war's last deadly rattle -
And yet, have countless pilgrim-feet
    The pilgrim's guerdon paid him,
And w...

Margaret J. Preston

For A Trafalgar Cenotaph

Lover of England, stand awhile and gaze
With thankful heart, and lips refrained from praise;
They rest beyond the speech of human pride
Who served with Nelson and with Nelson died.

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

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...

Henry John Newbolt