What of the bow?
   The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew-wood,
   The wood of English bows;
      So men who are free
      Love the old yew-tree
And the land where the yew-tree grows.

What of the shaft?
   The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
   Barbed and trim and true;
      So we’ll drink all together
      To the grey goose-feather
And the land where the grey goose flew.

What of the mark?
   Ah, seek it not in England,
A bold mark, our old mark
   Is waiting over-sea.
      When the strings harp in chorus,
      And the lion flag is o’er us,
It is there that our mark will be.

[The French Army, including a part of the Irish Brigade, under Marshal Villeroy, held the fortified town of Cremona during the winter of 1702.  Prince Eugène, with the Imperial Army, surprised it one morning, and, owing to the treachery of a priest, occupied the whole city before the alarm was given.  Villeroy was captured, together with many of the French garrison.  The Irish, however, consisting of the regiments of Dillon and of Burke, held a fort commanding the river gate, and defended themselves all day, in spite of Prince Eugène’s efforts to win them over to his cause.  Eventually Eugène, being unable to take the post, was compelled to withdraw from the city.]

The Grenadiers of Austria are proper men and tall;
The Grenadiers of Austria have scaled the city wall;
   They have marched from far away
   Ere the dawning of the day,
And the morning saw them masters of Cremona.

The Marshal Villeroy he has started from his bed;
The Marshal Villeroy has no wig upon his head;
   ‘I have lost my men!’ quoth he,
   ‘And my men they have lost me,
And I sorely fear we both have lost Cremona.’

Major Dan O’Mahony is in the barrack square,
And just six hundred Irish lads are waiting for him there;
   Says he, ‘Come in your shirt,
   And you won’t take any hurt,
For the morning air is pleasant in Cremona.’

Major Dan O’Mahony has reached the river fort,
And just six hundred Irish lads are joining in the sport;
   ‘Come, take a hand!’ says he,
   ‘And if you will stand by me,
Then it’s glory to the man who takes Cremona!’

Prince Eugène of Austria has frowns upon his face,
And loud he calls his Galloper of Irish blood and race:
   ‘MacDonnell, ride, I pray,
   To your countrymen, and say
That only they are left in all Cremona!’

‘Now, Major Dan O’Mahony, give up the river gate,
Or, Major Dan O’Mahony, you’ll find it is too late;
   For when I gallop back
   ’Tis the signal for attack,
And no quarter for the Irish in Cremona!’

And Major Dan he laughed: ‘Faith, if what you say be true,
And if they will not come until they hear again from you,
   Then there will be no attack,
   For you’re never going back,
And we’ll keep you snug and safely in Cremona.’

All the weary day, again, again, again,
The horsemen of Duprés and the footmen of Lorraine,
   Taafe and Herberstein,
   And the riders of the Rhine;
It’s a mighty price they’re paying for Cremona.

Prince Eugène has watched, and he gnaws his nether lip;
Prince Eugène has cursed as he saw his chances slip:
   ‘Call off!  Call off!’ he cried,
   ‘It is nearing eventide,
And I fear our work is finished in Cremona.’

Says Wauchop to McAulliffe, ‘Their fire is growing slack.’
Says Major Dan O’Mahony, ‘It is their last attack;
   But who will stop the game
   While there’s light to play the same,
And to walk a short way with them from Cremona?’

Just two hundred Irish lads are shouting on the wall;
Four hundred more are lying who can hear no slogan call;
   But what’s the odds of that,
   For it’s all the same to Pat
If he pays his debt in Dublin or Cremona.

‘Why, then,’ says Dan O’Mahony, ‘one favour we entreat,
We were called a little early, and our toilet’s not complete.
   We’ve no quarrel with the shirt,
   But the breeches wouldn’t hurt,
For the evening air is chilly in Cremona.’

Said Paul Leroy to Barrow,
‘Though the breach is steep and narrow,
   If we only gain the summit
      Then it’s odds we hold the fort.
I have ten and you have twenty,
And the thirty should be plenty,
With Henderson and Henty
   And McDermott in support.’

Said Paul Leroy to Barrow,
‘See that first ray, like an arrow,
   How it tinges all the fringes
      Of the sullen drifting skies.
They told me to begin it
At five-thirty to the minute,
And at thirty-one I’m in it,
   Or my sub will get his rise.

‘Leroy, I had a warning,
That my time has come this morning,
So I speak with frankness, scorning
   To deny the thing that’s true.
Yes, it’s Amy’s, is the trinket,
Little turquoise-studded trinket,
Not her gift—oh, never think it!
   For her thoughts were all for you.

‘Barrow, Barrow, you shall pay me!
Me, your comrade, to betray me!
   Well I know that little Amy
      Is as true as wife can be.
She to give this love-badged locket!
She had rather . . . Ha, the rocket!
Hi, McDougall!  Sound the bugle!
   Yorkshires, Yorkshires, follow me!’

* * * * *

‘And this locket, I unclasped it
From the fingers that still grasped it:
He told me how he got it,
   How he stole it in a valse.’
And she listened leaden-hearted:
Oh, the weary day they parted!
For she loved him—yes, she loved him—
For his youth and for his truth,
   And for those dying words, so false.

What marks the frontier line?
   Thou man of India, say!
Is it the Himalayas sheer,
The rocks and valleys of Cashmere,
Or Indus as she seeks the south
From Attoch to the fivefold mouth?
      ‘Not that!  Not that!’
   Then answer me, I pray!
What marks the frontier line?

What marks the frontier line?
   Thou Africander, say!
Is it shown by Zulu kraal,
By Drakensberg or winding Vaal,
Or where the Shiré waters seek
Their outlet east at Mozambique?
      ‘Not that!  Not that!
   There is a surer way
To mark the frontier line.’

‘But be it east or west,
   One common sign we bear,
The tongue may change, the soil, the sky,
But where your British brothers lie,
The lonely cairn, the nameless grave,
Still fringe the flowing Saxon wave.
      ’Tis that!  ’Tis where
   They lie—the men who placed it there,
That marks the frontier line.’

The Eastern day was well-nigh o’er
When, parched with thirst and travel sore,
Two of McPherson’s flanking corps
   Across the Desert were tramping.
They had wandered off from the beaten track
And now were wearily harking back,
Ever staring round for the signal jack
   That marked their comrades camping.

Weary and parched and hunger-torn,
They had wandered on from early morn,
And the young boy-soldier limped forlorn,
   Now stumbling and now falling.
Around the orange sand-curves lay,
Flecked with boulders, black or grey,
Death-silent, save that far away
   A kite was shrilly calling.

The Corporal peered at the crimson West,
Hid his pipe in his khaki vest.
Growled out an oath and onward pressed,
   Still glancing over his shoulder.
‘Bedouins, mate!’ he curtly said;
‘We’ll find some work for steel and lead,
And maybe sleep in a sandy bed,
   Before we’re one hour older.

Alas for the Emir Ali Khan!
A hundred paces before his clan,
That ebony steed of the prophet’s breed
   Is the foal of death and of danger.
A spurt of fire, a gasp of pain,
A blueish blurr on the yellow plain,
The chief was down, and his bridle rein
   Was in the grip of the stranger.

One faltering word from pal to pal,
But it found the heart of the Corporal.
He had sprung to the sand, he had lent him a hand,
   ‘Up, mate!  They’ll be ’ere in a minute;
Off with you!  No palaver!  Go!
I’ll bide be’ind and run this show.
Promotion has been cursed slow,
   And this is my chance to win it.’

The young boy-private, glancing back,
Saw the Bedouins’ wild attack,
And heard the sharp Martini crack.
   But as he gazed, already
The fierce fanatic Arab band
Was closing in on every hand,
Until one tawny swirl of sand,
   Concealed them in its eddy.

* * * * *

And still when twilight shadows fall,
After the evening bugle call,
In bivouac or in barrack-hall,
His comrades speak of the Corporal,
   His death and his devotion.
And there are some who like to say
That perhaps a hidden meaning lay
In the words he spoke, and that the day
When his rough bold spirit passed away
   Was the day that he won promotion.

[The scene of this ancient fight, recorded by Froissart, is still called ‘Altura de los Inglesos.’  Five hundred years later Wellington’s soldiers were fighting on the same ground.]

‘Say, what saw you on the hill,
   Campesino Garcia?’
‘I saw my brindled heifer there,
A trail of bowmen, spent and bare,
And a little man on a sorrel mare
   Riding slow before them.’

‘Say, what saw you in the vale,
   Campesino Garcia?’
‘There I saw my lambing ewe
And an army riding through,
Thick and brave the pennons flew
   From the lances o’er them.’

‘Then what saw you in the vale,
   Campesino Garcia?’
‘There I saw my bullocks twain,
And amid my uncut grain
All the hardy men of Spain
   Spurring for their foemen.’

‘Nay, but there is more to tell,
   Campesino Garcia!’
‘I could not bide the end to view;
I had graver things to do
Tending on the lambing ewe
   Down among the clover.’

‘Nay, but saw you nothing more,
   Campesino Garcia?’
‘Yes, I saw them lying there,
The little man and sorrel mare;
And in their ranks the bowmen fair,
   With their staves before them.’

‘And the hardy men of Spain,
   Campesino Garcia?’
‘Hush! but we are Spanish too;
More I may not say to you:
May God’s benison, like dew,
   Gently settle o’er them.’

Pennarby shaft is dark and steep,
Eight foot wide, eight hundred deep.
Stout the bucket and tough the cord,
Strong as the arm of Winchman Ford.
   ‘Never look down!
   Stick to the line!’
That was the saying at Pennarby mine.

A stranger came to Pennarby shaft.
Lord, to see how the miners laughed!
White in the collar and stiff in the hat,
With his patent boots and his silk cravat,
   Picking his way,
   Dainty and fine,
Stepping on tiptoe to Pennarby mine.

’Twas like two worlds that met that day—
The world of work and the world of play;
And the grimy lads from the reeking shaft
Nudged each other and grinned and chaffed.
   ‘Got ’em all out!’
   ‘A cousin of mine!’
So ran the banter at Pennarby mine.

Then leaning over and peering in,
He was pointing out what he said was tin
In the ten-foot lode—a crash! a jar!
A grasping hand and a splintered bar.
   Gone in his strength,
   With the lips that laughed—
Oh, the pale faces round Pennarby shaft!

‘He’s got him!  He has him!  Pull with a will!
Thank God!  He’s over and breathing still.
And he—Lord’s sakes now!  What’s that?  Well!
Blowed if it ain’t our London swell.
   Your heart is right
   If your coat is fine:
Give us your hand!’ cried Pennarby mine.

A trader sailed from Stepney town—
Wake her up!  Shake her up!  Try her with the mainsail!
A trader sailed from Stepney town
With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown:
   Ho, the bully rover Jack,
   Waiting with his yard aback
Out upon the Lowland sea!

‘Alas the day, oh daughter mine!’—
Shake her up!  Wake her up!  Try her with the topsail!
‘Alas the day, oh daughter mine!
Yon red, red flag is a fearsome sign!’
   Ho, the bully rover Jack,
   Reaching on the weather tack,
Out upon the Lowland sea!

‘A fearsome flag!’ the maiden cried—
Wake her up!  Shake her up!  Try her with the jibsail!
‘A fearsome flag!’ the maiden cried,
But comelier men I never have spied!’
   Ho, the bully rover Jack,
   Reaching on the weather tack,
Out upon the Lowland sea!

Where is the maiden who knelt at his side?—
Wake her up!  Shake her up!  Every stitch a-drawing!
Where is the maiden who knelt at his side?
We gowned her in scarlet, and chose her our bride:
   Ho, the bully rover Jack,
   Reaching on the weather tack,
Right across the Lowland sea!

Who carries the gun?
   A lad from a Yorkshire dale.
Then let him go, for well we know
   The heart that never will fail.
Here’s to the fire of Lancashire,
   And here’s to her soldier son!
For the hard-bit north has sent him forth—
   The lad that carries the gun.

Who carries the gun?
   A lad from the hills of Wales.
Then let him go, for well we know,
   That Taffy is hard as nails.
There are several ll’s in the place where he dwells,
   And of w’s more than one,
With a ‘Llan’ and a ‘pen,’ but it breeds good men,
   And it’s they who carry the gun.

Who carries the gun?
   A lad from London town.
Then let him go, for well we know
   The stuff that never backs down.
He has learned to joke at the powder smoke,
   For he is the fog-smoke’s son,
And his heart is light and his pluck is right—
   The man who carries the gun.

It’s up and away from our work to-day,
   For the breeze sweeps over the down;
And it’s hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame,
   And the bracken is bronzing to brown.
With the turf ’neath our tread and the blue overhead,
   And the song of the lark in the whin;
There’s the flag and the green, with the bunkers between—
   Now will you be over or in?

The palm and the leather come rarely together,
   Gripping the driver’s haft,
And it’s good to feel the jar of the steel
   And the spring of the hickory shaft.
Why trouble or seek for the praise of a clique?
   A cleek here is common to all;
And the lie that might sting is a very small thing
   When compared with the lie of the ball.

It came from gettin’ ’eated, that was ’ow the thing begun,
And ’ackin’ back to kennels from a ninety-minute run;
‘I guess I’ve copped brownchitis,’ says I to brother Jack,
An’ then afore I knowed it I was down upon my back.

I never was a ’eavy weight.  I scaled at seven four,
An’ rode at eight, or maybe at just a trifle more;
And now I’ll stake my davy I wouldn’t scale at five,
And I’d ’old my own at catch-weights with the skinniest jock alive.

But I knows as I’m a goner.  They never said as much,
But I reads the people’s faces, and I knows as I am such;
Well, there’s ’Urst to mind the ’orses and the ’ounds can look to Jack,
Though ’e never was a patch on me in ’andlin’ of a pack.

And voices—why, Lor’ love you, it’s more than I can ’elp,
It just comes kind of natural to know each whine an’ yelp;
You might take them twenty couple where you will and let ’em run,
An’ I’d listen by the coverside and name ’em one by one.

And when the ’ydrophoby came five year ago next May,
When Nailer was be’avin’ in a most owdacious way,
I fixed ’im so’s ’e couldn’t bite, my ’ands on neck an’ back,
An’ I ’eaved ’im from the kennels, and they say I saved the pack.

Parson brought ’is Bible and come to read to me;
‘’Ave what you like, there’s everythink within this Book,’ says ’e.
Says I, ‘They’ve left the ’orses out!’  Says ’e, ‘You are mistook;’
An’ ’e up an’ read a ’eap of things about them from the Book.

Parson is a good ’un.  I’ve known ’im from a lad;
’Twas me as taught ’im ridin’, an’ ’e rides uncommon bad;
And he says—But ’ark an’ listen!  There’s an ’orn!  I ’eard it blow;
Pull the blind from off the winder!  Prop me up, and ’old me so.

Let me sit an’ ’old the bedrail!  Now I see ’em as they pass:
There’s Squire upon the Midland mare, a good ’un on the grass;
But this is closish country, and you wants a clever ’orse
When ’alf the time you’re in the woods an’ ’alf among the gorse.

I see the crossroads corner, with the field awaitin’ there,
There’s Purcell on ’is piebald ’orse, an’ Doctor on the mare,
And the Master on ’is iron grey; she isn’t much to look,
But I seed ’er do clean twenty foot across the ’eathly brook.

It’s a check, and they are drawin’ down the coppice for a scent,
You can see as they’ve been runnin’, for the ’orses they are spent;
I’ll lay the fox will break this way, downwind as sure as fate,
An’ if he does you’ll see the field come poundin’ through our gate.

There now I ’ear the music, and I know they’re on his track;
Oh, watch ’em, Maggie, watch ’em!  Ain’t they just a lovely pack!
I’ve nursed ’em through distemper, an’ I’ve trained an’ broke ’em in,
An’ my ’eart it just goes out to them as if they was my kin.

   Master went a-hunting,
      When the leaves were falling;
   We saw him on the bridle path,
      We heard him gaily calling.
‘Oh master, master, come you back,
For I have dreamed a dream so black!’
   A glint of steel from bit and heel,
      The chestnut cantered faster;
   A red flash seen amid the green,
      And so good-bye to master.

[Being an humble address to Her Majesty’s Naval advisers, who sold Nelson’s old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.]

Who says the Nation’s purse is lean,
   Who fears for claim or bond or debt,
When all the glories that have been
   Are scheduled as a cash asset?
If times are black and trade is slack,
   If coal and cotton fail at last,
We’ve something left to barter yet—
      Our glorious past.

And stone and marble may be sold
   Which serve no present daily need;
There’s Edward’s Windsor, labelled old,
   And Wolsey’s palace, guaranteed.
St. Clement Danes and fifty fanes,
   The Tower and the Temple grounds;
How much for these?  Just price them, please,
      In British pounds.

Go barter to the knacker’s yard
   The steed that has outlived its time!
Send hungry to the pauper ward
   The man who served you in his prime!
But when you touch the Nation’s store,
   Be broad your mind and tight your grip.
Take heed!  And bring us back once more
      Our Nelson’s ship.

Christopher Davis was up upon Mavis
   And Sammy MacGregor on Flo,
Jo Chauncy rode Spider, the rankest outsider,
   But he’d make a wooden horse go.
There was Robin and Leah and Boadicea,
   And Chesterfield’s Son of the Sea;
And Irish Nuneaton, who never was beaten,
   They backed her at seven to three.

The tipsters were touting, the bookies were shouting
   ‘Bar one, bar one, bar one!’
With a glint and a glimmer of silken shimmer
   The field shone bright in the sun,
When Farmer Brown came riding down:
   ‘I hain’t much time to spare,
But I’ve entered her name, so I’ll play out the game,
   On the back o’ my old gray mare.

And the bookies laughed and the bookies chaffed,
   ‘Who backs the mare?’ cried they.
‘A hundred to one!’  ‘It’s done—and done!’
   ‘We’ll take that price all day.’
‘What if the mare is shedding hair!
   What if her eye is wild!
We read her worth and her pedigree birth
   In the smile that her owner smiled.’

They’ve weighed him in.  ‘Now lose or win,
   I’ve money at stake this day;
Gee-long, my sweet, and if we’re beat,
   We’ll both do all we may!’
He joins the rest, they line abreast,
   ‘Back Leah!  Mavis up!’
The flag is dipped and the field is slipped,
   Full split for the Farnshire Cup.

Chestnut and bay, and sorrel and gray,
   See how they glimmer and gleam!
Bending and straining, and losing and gaining,
   Silk jackets flutter and stream;
They are over the grass as the cloud shadows pass,
   They are up to the fence at the top;
It’s ‘hey then!’ and over, and into the clover,
   There wasn’t one slip at the drop.

Robin was tailing and pecked at a paling,
   Leah’s gone weak in her feet;
Boadicea came down at the railing,
   Son of the Sea is dead beat.
Leather to leather, they’re pounding together,
   Three of them all in a row;
And Irish Nuneaton, who never was beaten,
   Is level with Spider and Flo.

So try it, my beauties, and fly it, my beauties,
   Spider, Nuneaton, and Flo;
With a trip and a blunder there’s one of them under,
   Hark to it crashing below!
Is it the brown or the sorrel that’s down?
   The brown!  It is Flo who is in!
And Spider with Chauncy, the pick of the fancy,
   Is going full split for a win.

‘Spider is winning!’  ‘Jo Chauncy is winning!’
   It swells like the roar of the sea;
But Jo hears the drumming of somebody coming,
   And sees a lean head by his knee.
‘Nuneaton!  Nuneaton!  The Spider is beaten!’
   It is but a spurt at the most;
For lose it or win it, they have but a minute
   Before they are up with the post.

Don’t tell me of luck, for its judgment and pluck
   And a courage that never will shirk;
To give your mind to it and know how to do it
   And put all your heart in your work.
So here’s to the Spider, the winning outsider,
   With little Jo Chauncy up;
May they stay life’s course, both jockey and horse,
   As they stayed in the Farnshire Cup.

For somebody laid against the gray,
   And somebody made a pile;
And Brown says he can make farming pay,
   And he smiles a simple smile.
‘Them sharps from town were riled,’ says Brown;
   ‘But I can’t see why—can you?
For I said quite fair as I knew that mare,
   And I proved my words was true.’

Ten mile in twenty minutes!  ’E done it, sir.  That’s true.
The big bay ’orse in the further stall—the one wot’s next to you.
I’ve seen some better ’orses; I’ve seldom seen a wuss,
But ’e ’olds the bloomin’ record, an’ that’s good enough for us.

For ’e never seemed a-thinkin’ of what ’e ’ad to do,
But ’is thoughts was set on ’igher things, admirin’ of the view.
’E looked a puffeck pictur, and a pictur ’e would stay,
’E wouldn’t even switch ’is tail to drive the flies away.

It was all along o’ master; which master ’as the name
Of a reg’lar true blue sportman, an’ always acts the same;
But we all ’as weaker moments, which master ’e ’ad one,
An’ ’e went and bought a motor-car when motor-cars begun.

It didn’t want no stable, it didn’t ask no groom,
It didn’t need no nothin’ but a bit o’ standin’ room.
Just fill it up with paraffin an’ it would go all day,
Which the same should be agin the law if I could ’ave my way.

An’ then one day it wouldn’t go.  ’E screwed and screwed again,
But somethin’ jammed, an’ there ’e stuck in the mud of a country lane.
It ’urt ’is pride most cruel, but what was ’e to do?
So at last ’e bade me fetch a ’orse to pull the motor through.

Not bad tempered, mind you, but kind of pained and vexed,
And ’e seemed to say, ‘Well, bli’ me! wot will they ask me next?
I’ve put up with some liberties, but this caps all by far,
To be assistant engine to a crocky motor-car!’

‘’Old ’ard, old gal!’ says master, and ‘Gently then!’ says I,
But an engine won’t ’eed coaxin’ an’ it ain’t no use to try;
So first ’e pulled a lever, an’ then ’e turned a screw,
But the thing kept crawlin’ forrard spite of all that ’e could do.

At first ’e walked quite dignified, an’ then ’e ’ad to trot,
And then ’e tried a canter when the pace became too ’ot.
’E looked ’is very ’aughtiest, as if ’e didn’t ’e mind,
And all the time the motor-car was pushin’ ’im be’ind.

Master ’eld the steerin’ gear, an’ kept the road all right,
And away they whizzed and clattered—my aunt! it was a sight.
’E seemed the finest draught ’orse as ever lived by far,
For all the country Juggins thought ’twas ’im wot pulled the car.

Ten mile in twenty minutes!  ’E done it, sir.  That’s true.
The only time we ever found what that ’ere ’orse could do.
Some say it wasn’t ’ardly fair, and the papers made a fuss,
But ’e broke the ten-mile record, and that’s good enough for us.

And master?  Well, it cured ’im.  ’E altered from that day,
And come back to ’is ’orses in the good old-fashioned way.
And if you wants to git the sack, the quickest way by far
Is to ’int as ’ow you think ’e ought to keep a motor-car.