LAST THOUGHTS ON GALLIPOLI.
Once more sits Mahomet by Helles' marges
And smokes at ease among his cypress-trees,
Nor snipes from scrubberies at British targes
Nor views them wallowing in sacred seas,
But cleans his side-arms and is pleased to prattle
Of that great morning when he woke and heard
That in his slumbers he had fought a battle,
A bloody battle, and a little bird
Piped (in the German) at his side, and said,
"The something infidels have been and fled."
Cautious he crept from out his mountain-ditches,
Down the long gully, past the Water Towers;
By Backhouse Point he nosed among the niches,
But they were hushed, and innocent of Giaours;
Still fearful found the earthy homes we haunted,
Those thirsty stretches where the rest-camps were,
Then to the sea slunk on, a trifle daunted
By wreathéd wires and every sort of snare,
And came at last, incredulous, to find
The very beach all blasphemously mined.
Now on each hand he eyes our impious labels,
Bond Street and Regent Street, those weary ways;
Here stands the Pink Farm, with the broken gables,
Here Oxford Circus marks a winding maze;
But most, I ween, in scarred grave-ridden regions
O'er many a battle-scene he loves to brood,
How Allah here was gracious to his legions,
How here, again, he was not quite so good,
Here by the Brown House, when the bombs began,
And they—don't mention it—they turned and ran.
And we no more shall see the great ships gather,
Nor hear their thundering on days of state,
Nor toil from trenches in an honest lather
To magic swimmings in the perfect Strait;
Nor sip Greek wine and see the slow sun dropping
On gorgeous evenings over Imbros' Isle,
While up the hill that maxim will keep popping,
And the men sing, and camp-fires wink awhile,
And in the scrub the glow-worms glow like stars,
But (hopeless creatures) will not light cigars;
Nor daylong linger in our delvéd lodges,
And fight for food with fifty thousand flies,
Too sick and sore to be afraid of "proj's,"
Too dazed with dust to see the turquoise skies;
Nor walk at even by the busy beaches,
Or quiet cliff-paths where the Indians pray,
And see the sweepers in the sky-blue reaches
Of Troy's own water, where the Greek ships lay,
And touch the boat-hulks, where they float forlorn,
The wounded boats of that first April morn;
Nor wake unhappily to see the sun come
And stand to arms in some Cimmerian grot—
But I, in town, well rid of all that bunkum,
I like to think that Mahomet is not;
He must sit on, now sweltering, now frozen,
By many a draughty cliff and mountain holt,
And, when rude fears afflict the Prophet's chosen,
Gird on his arms and madly work his bolt,
While round the heights the awful whispers run,
"The bard of Punch is landing with his gun."