From the Provençal by Harriet Waters Preston
From “Calendau”
AT Arles in the Carlovingian days,
By the swift Rhone water,
A hundred thousand on either side,
Christian and Saracen, fought till the tide
Ran red with the slaughter.
May God forefend such another flood
Of direful war!
The Count of...
March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale!
Why the de’il dinna ye march forward in order?
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale!
All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!
Many a banner spread
Flutters above your head,
Many a crest that is famous in story!—
Mount and make ready, then,
Sons of...
[1415]
fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Kause, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry,
And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marchèd towards Agincourt...
As I was walkin' the jungle round, a-klllin' of tigers an' time,
I seed a kind of an author man, a writin' a rousin' rhyme;
'E was writin' a mile a minute an' more, an' I sez to 'im: "Oo are you?"
Sez 'e, "I'm a poet—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor, too!"
An' 'is poem began at Ipsahan an' ended In Kalamazoo;
...
This is the story of G.R.D.,
Who went on a mission across the sea
To borrow some money for you and me.
This G. R. Dibbs was a stalwart man
Who was built on a most extensive plan,
And a regular staunch Republican.
But he fell in the hands of the Tory crew
Who said, "It's a shame...
In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a...
No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar
The bright Olympians and their Lord,
Her over-kind protector,—
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape
And took to such behaving
As would have shamed our grandsire ape
Before the days of shaving,—
No! ne'er was...
By the far Samoan shore,
Where the league-long rollers pour
All the wash of the Pacific on the coral-guarded bay,
Riding lightly at their ease,
In the calm of tropic seas,
The three great nations' warships at their anchors proudly lay.
Riding lightly, head to wind,
With the coral reefs...
"Who carries the gun?"
A lad from London town.
We'll 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 lad who carries the gun.
...
