NARRATIVES IN VERSE

SIR PATRICK SPENS

FOLK BALLAD

The king sits in Dumferling toune,

Drinking the blude-reid wine:

“O whar will I get guid sailor,

To sail this schip of mine?”

Up and spak an eldern knicht,[10]

Sat at the king’s richt kne:

“Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor

That sails upon the se.”

The king has written a braid[11] letter,

And signed it wi his hand,

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,

Was walking on the sand.

The first line that Sir Patrick red,

A loud lauch lauched he;

The next line that Sir Patrick red,

The teir blinded his ee.

“O wha is this has don this deid,

This ill deid don to me,

To send me out this time o’ the yeir,

To sail upon the se!

“Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men all,

Our guid schip sails the morne.”

“O say na sae[12], my master deir,

For I feir a deadlie storme.

“Late, late yestreen[13] saw the new moone,

Wi the auld moone in hir arme,

And I feir, I feir, my deir master,

That we will cum to harme.”

O our Scots nobles wer richt laith[14]

To weet[15] their cork-heild schoone[16];

Bot lang owre[17] a’ the play wer playd,

Thair hats they swam aboone.[18]

O lang, lang may their ladies sit,

Wi thair fans into their hand,

Or eir[19] they se Sir Patrick Spens,

Cum sailing to the land.

O lang, lang may the ladies stand,

Wi thair gold kems[20] in their hair,

Waiting for thair ain deir lords,

For they’ll se thame na mair.

Haf owre[21], haf owre to Aberdour,

It’s fiftie fadom[22] deip,

And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spens,

Wi the Scots lords at his feit.[23]

[10] knicht, knight

[11] braid, long

[12] na sae, not so

[13] yestreen, yesterday evening

[14] laith, loath

[15] weet, wet

[16] schoone, shoes

[17] owre, before

[18] aboone, above

[19] or eir, before

[20] kems, combs

[21] owre, over

[22] fadom, fathoms

[23] feit, feet

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Historical Note. The old folk ballads, of which this one is an excellent example, have all come down to us from the far-off past. Such ballads are not the work of any one author, but like the stories of King Arthur, were preserved mainly in the memories of men. Some of them were sung or recited to the music of the harp or lute by minstrels who wandered from village to village, and from castle to castle, entertaining their hearers in return for food and lodging; or by the bards and minstrels who were maintained by kings and nobles to entertain them and to celebrate their deeds and honors. Often they were made by the people, not by professional singers, and were expressions of the folk love of adventure. Indeed, the best definition of a popular, or folk, ballad is that it is “a tale telling itself in song.” This means that a ballad always tells a story; that it has no known author, being composed by several people or by a community and then handed down orally, not in writing, from generation to generation; and finally, that it is sung, not recited. In this way such folk ballads as “Sir Patrick Spens” were transmitted for generations, in different versions, before they were written down and became a part of what we call literature, that is, something written. When the invention of the printing press made it possible to put these old ballads in a permanent form, they were collected from the recitations of old men and women who knew them, and printed. Thus they have become a precious literary possession, telling us something of the life, the history, and the standards, superstitions, and beliefs of distant times, and thrilling us with their stirring stories. The beauty of these old ballads lies in the story they tell, and in their directness and simplicity. They are almost wholly without literary ornament; their language is the language of the people, not of the court.

Many modern poets have written stories in verse which are also called ballads. Some are in imitation of the old ballads, using the old ballad meter and riming system, and employing old-fashioned words and expressions, to add to the effect. Other modern ballads are simple narratives in verse—short stories dealing with stirring subjects, with battle, adventure, etc. But while the true old ballad holds the attention upon the story only, the modern ballads often introduce descriptions of the characters.

Discussion. 1. Why did the king choose Sir Patrick Spens? 2. What did Sir Patrick say when he had read the king’s letter? 3. What signs of a storm had been noticed? 4. Point out all the ways in which the ballad tells that the ship was wrecked. 5. How have the old ballads come down to us? 6. What other old ballad have you read? 7. Tell how the old ballads came into being, and name a characteristic of them. 8. What do the old ballads tell us of the life of the early people? 9. How does a modern ballad differ from a folk, or popular, ballad?

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast

Still in [rude armor] drest,

Comest to daunt me!

Wrapt not in Eastern balms,

But with thy [fleshless palms]

Stretched, as if asking alms,

Why dost thou haunt me?”

Then, from those [cavernous eyes]

[Pale flashes] seemed to rise,

As when the Northern skies

Gleam in December;

And, like the water’s flow

Under December’s snow,

Came a dull voice of woe

From the [heart’s chamber].

“I was a Viking old!

My deeds, though manifold,

No Skald in song has told,

No Saga taught thee!

Take heed, that in thy verse

Thou dost the tale rehearse,

Else dread a dead man’s curse;

For this I sought thee.

“Far in the Northern Land,

By the wild Baltic’s strand,

I, with my childish hand,

Tamed the gerfalcon;

And, with my skates fast-bound,

Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,

That the [poor whimpering hound]

Trembled to walk on.

“Oft to his [frozen lair]

Tracked I the grizzly bear,

While from my path the hare

Fled like a shadow;

Oft through the forest dark

Followed the were-wolf’s bark,

Until the soaring lark

Sang from the meadow.

“But when I older grew,

Joining a corsair’s crew,

O’er the dark sea I flew

With the marauders.

Wild was the life we led,

Many the [souls that sped],

Many the hearts that bled,

By our stern orders.

“Many a wassail-bout

Wore the long winter out;

Often our midnight shout

Set the cocks crowing,

As we the Berserk’s tale

[Measured in cups of ale],

Draining the oaken pail,

Filled to o’erflowing.

“Once as I told in glee

Tales of the stormy sea,

Soft eyes did gaze on me,

Burning yet tender;

And as the white stars shine

On the dark Norway pine,

On that dark heart of mine

Fell their [soft splendor].

“I wooed the blue-eyed maid,

Yielding, yet half afraid,

And in the forest’s shade

Our [vows were plighted].

Under its loosened vest

Fluttered her little breast,

Like birds within their nest

By the hawk frighted.

“Bright in her father’s hall

Shields gleamed upon the wall,

Loud sang the minstrels all,

Chanting his glory;

When of old Hildebrand

I asked his daughter’s hand,

Mute did the minstrels stand

To hear my story.

“While the brown ale he quaffed,

Loud then the champion laughed,

And as the wind-gusts waft

The sea-foam brightly,

So the loud laugh of scorn,

Out of those [lips unshorn],

From the deep drinking-horn

Blew the foam lightly.

“She was a Prince’s child,

I but a Viking wild,

And though she blushed and smiled,

I was discarded!

Should not the dove so white

Follow the sea-mew’s flight,

Why did they leave that night

Her nest unguarded?

“Scarce had I put to sea,

Bearing the maid with me,—

Fairest of all was she

Among the Norsemen!—

When on the white sea-strand,

Waving his armèd hand,

Saw we old Hildebrand,

With twenty horsemen.

“Then launched they to the blast,

Bent like a reed each mast,

Yet we were gaining fast,

When the wind failed us;

And with a sudden flaw

Came round the gusty Skaw,

So that our foe we saw

Laugh as he hailed us.

“And as to catch the gale

Round veered the flapping sail,

Death! was the helmsman’s hail,

[Death without quarter!]

Mid-ships with iron keel

Struck we her ribs of steel;

Down her black hulk did reel

Through the black water!

“As with his [wings aslant],

Sails the fierce cormorant,

Seeking some rocky haunt,

With his prey laden,

So toward the [open main],

Beating to sea again,

Through the wild hurricane,

Bore I the maiden.

“Three weeks we westward bore,

And when the storm was o’er,

Cloud-like we saw the shore

[Stretching to leeward];

There for my lady’s bower

Built I the lofty tower,

Which, to this very hour,

Stands looking seaward.

“There lived we many years;

[Time dried the maiden’s tears];

She had forgot her fears,

She was a mother;

Death closed her mild blue eyes,

Under that tower she lies;

Ne’er shall the sun arise

On such another!

“Still grew my bosom then,

Still as a [stagnant fen]!

Hateful to me were men,

The sunlight hateful.

In the vast forest here,

Clad in my [warlike gear],

Fell I upon my spear,

Oh, death was grateful!

Thus, seamed with many scars,

Bursting these prison bars,

Up to its native stars

My soul ascended!

There from the [flowing bowl]

Deep drinks the warrior’s soul,

Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!”

—Thus the tale ended.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, [see page 81].

Discussion. 1. With which stanza does the narrative begin? 2. What may the first three stanzas be called? 3. Which of these three stanzas is descriptive? 4. In which does the Viking make himself known? 5. In what stanzas is the story told? 6. With what line does the story end? 7. What relation to the poem has the last line? 8. Describe the scene suggested by the first stanza; who is speaking? 9. Describe the guest to whom the poet speaks. 10. In using the word “fearful” to describe this guest, was the poet emphasizing only the outward appearance of his guest? 11. Can you use other words equally exact and poetical for “daunt” and “haunt”? 12. Give a name to the “flashes” that are seen when the Northern skies gleam in December. 13. To what is the voice of the skeleton compared? 14. Is it an apt comparison? 15. Does the second stanza prepare us for a story of happy things? 16. What stanzas help you to see the kind of people the Vikings were, and to imagine the life they led? 17. The Viking showed his wonderful courage in going out into the “open main” in a wild hurricane; give all the other evidences of his courage found in the poem. 18. The Introduction (pages 89 and 90) gives various motives for seeking adventures; do you think the Knights and the Vikings had the same motive? 19. How does this ballad differ from a folk ballad, such as “Sir Patrick Spens”? 20. Pronounce the following: daunt; palms; alms; haunt; launched.

Phrases

THE THREE FISHERS

CHARLES KINGSLEY

Three fishers went sailing away to the West,

Away to the West as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town;

For men must work and women must weep,

And there’s little to earn and many to keep,

Though the [harbor bar be moaning].

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;

They looked at the squall and they looked at the shower,

And the [nightrack came rolling] up ragged and brown;

But men must work and women must weep,

Though storms be sudden and waters deep,

And the harbor bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands,

In the [morning gleam] as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and wringing their hands

For those who will never come home to the town;

For men must work and women must weep,

And the sooner it’s over [the sooner to sleep],

And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), clergyman, lecturer, poet, and novelist, was born in Dartmoor, England. During his earlier years he lived in the beautiful Fen Country, the scenery of which made a deep impression on him. He was a friend of Tennyson and a poet of real excellence. His ballads, “The Three Fishers” and “The Sands of Dee,” are widely read and admired, and his novel Westward Ho! is a brilliant narrative of adventure. In “The Three Fishers” he shows that he has studied the fisher folk of his native country and sees with genuine sympathy their hard life and the courage that enables them to brave the perils of the sea.

Discussion. 1. What does the poem tell you about the three fishers? 2. What does it suggest? 3. Where could a stanza be inserted to tell a part of the story that is only suggested? 4. Do you think this would improve the poem? 5. What signs were there of an approaching storm? 6. Why does the occupation of deep-sea fishers train them to understand signs indicating changes in the weather? 7. Why did these fishers go out to sea notwithstanding signs of a storm? 8. What other thought do you think was in their minds as “Each thought on the woman who loved him best”? 9. What idea of the deep-sea fishers does this poem give you? 10. What idea of the sea? 11. What other poems do you know that tell of life on the sea? 12. What idea of the sea does each give?

Phrases

LORD ULLIN’S DAUGHTER

THOMAS CAMPBELL

A chieftain [to the Highlands bound]

Cries “Boatman, do not tarry!

And I’ll give thee a silver pound

To row us o’er the ferry!”

“Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,

This dark and stormy water?”

“O I’m the chief of Ulva’s isle,

And this, Lord Ullin’s daughter.

“And fast before her father’s men

Three days we’ve fled together,

For should he find us in the glen,

My blood would [stain the heather].

“His horsemen hard behind us ride—

Should they our steps discover,

Then who will cheer my bonny bride,

When they have slain her lover?”

Out spoke the [hardy Highland wight],

“I’ll go, my chief, I’m ready;

It is not for your silver bright,

But for your winsome lady.

“And by my word! the bonny bird

In danger shall not tarry;

So though the waves are [raging white]

I’ll row you o’er the ferry.”

By this the storm [grew loud apace],

The water-wraith was shrieking;

And [in the scowl of Heaven] each face

Grew dark as they were speaking.

But still as wilder blew the wind,

And as the night grew drearer,

Adown the glen rode arméd men,

Their trampling sounded nearer.

“O haste thee, haste!” the lady cries,

“Though tempests round us gather;

I’ll meet the raging of the skies,

But not an angry father.”

The boat has left a stormy land,

A stormy sea before her—

When, oh! too strong for human hand

The tempest gather’d o’er her.

And still they row’d amidst the roar

Of [waters fast prevailing];

Lord Ullin reach’d that [fatal shore]—

His wrath was changed to wailing.

For, sore dismay’d, through storm and shade

His child he did discover;

One lovely hand she stretch’d for aid,

And one was round her lover.

“Come back! come back!” he cried in grief,

“Across this stormy water;

And I’ll forgive your Highland chief,

My daughter!—Oh, my daughter!”

’Twas vain: the loud waves lash’d the shore,

Return or aid preventing;

The waters wild went o’er his child,

And he was left lamenting.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) was a popular Scottish poet. He was born in Glasgow, his father being a prominent merchant of that city. At an early age Campbell began to write poetry, and at twenty-one had published “The Pleasures of Hope,” a poem that was received with much favor. He excelled in war poetry, his “Hohenlinden”, “The Battle of the Baltic”, and “Ye Mariners of England” being the most widely read. His ballads “Lochiel” and “Lord Ullin’s Daughter” are the best known. Campbell is remembered not alone for these stirring narrative poems, but also for the excellence of favorite lines that he wrote, such as “To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die,” and “’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.”

Discussion. 1. Tell briefly the story of the poem. 2. What picture do the first two stanzas give you? 3. What reason did the boatman give for saying he would row them over the ferry? 4. What change of time do you notice in the tenth stanza? 5. What does the eleventh stanza tell you? 6. Which stanza tells you of the tragedy? 7. What other poems of the sea have you read in this book? 8. What characteristics of the ballad has this poem?

Phrases

THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW

JOHN G. WHITTIER

Pipes of the misty moorlands,

Voice of the glens and hills,

The [droning of the torrents],

The [treble of the rills]!

Not the [braes of broom] and heather,

Nor the mountains dark with rain,

Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,

Have heard your sweetest strain!

Dear to the Lowland reaper,

And [plaided mountaineer],

To the cottage and the castle

The Scottish pipes are dear;

Sweet sounds the [ancient pibroch]

O’er mountain, loch, and glade;

But the sweetest of all music

The Pipes at Lucknow played.

Day by day [the Indian tiger]

Louder yelled, and nearer crept;

Round and round the [jungle-serpent]

Near and nearer circles swept.

“Pray for rescue, wives and mothers—

Pray today!” the soldier said;

“Tomorrow, death’s between us

And the wrong and shame we dread.”

O they listened, looked, and waited,

Till their hope became despair;

And the sobs of [low bewailing]

Filled the pauses of their prayer.

Then up spake a Scottish maiden,

With her ear unto the ground:

“Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it?

The pipes o’ Havelock sound!”

Hushed the wounded man his groaning;

Hushed the wife her little ones;

Alone they heard the drum-roll

And the roar of Sepoy guns.

But to sounds of home and childhood

The Highland ear was true;

As her mother’s [cradle-crooning]

The mountain pipes she knew.

Like the march of soundless music

Through the [vision of the seer],

More of feeling than of hearing,

Of the heart than of the ear,

She knew the droning pibroch,

She knew the Campbell’s call;

“Hark! hear ye no’ MacGregor’s,

The grandest o’ them all!”

O they listened, dumb and breathless,

And they caught the sound at last;

Faint and far beyond the Goomtee

Rose and fell the piper’s blast!

Then a burst of wild thanksgiving

Mingled woman’s voice and man’s;

“God be praised!—the March of Havelock!

The piping of the clans!”

Louder, nearer, [fierce as vengeance],

Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,

Came the wild MacGregor’s clan-call,

Stinging all the air to life.

But when the far-off dust-cloud

To plaided legions grew,

Full tenderly and blithesomely

The pipes of rescue blew!

Round the silver domes of Lucknow,

[Moslem mosque] and [pagan shrine],

Breathed the air to Britons dearest,

The air of Auld Lang Syne.

O’er the cruel roll of war-drums

Rose that sweet and homelike strain;

And the tartan clove the turban,

As the [Goomtee cleaves the plain].

Dear to the corn-land reaper

And plaided mountaineer,

To the cottage and the castle

The piper’s song is dear.

Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch

O’er mountain, glen, and glade;

But the sweetest of all music

The Pipes at Lucknow played!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, [see page 60].

Historical Note. The Indian Mutiny was the great revolt of the Bengal native army (the Sepoys) against the British rule in 1857. At Lucknow, in northern India, the English were almost overcome. The town, defended by a garrison of only 1720 men, who were protecting many women and children, was besieged by a greatly superior number. The defense, nevertheless, was maintained from the 30th of June to the 26th of September, when the relief column under the Scottish general, Sir Henry Havelock, preceded by the music of the bagpipes, reached the city.

Discussion. 1. What stanzas picture Scotland and the feeling her people have for the music of the bagpipe? 2. What contrasts show how universal this feeling is? 3. In the first stanza, what is this music said to be like? 4. What do you know about the bagpipe that makes this comparison especially apt? 5. The poem tells a story; with what stanzas does the story begin and end? 6. What relation to this story have the first two stanzas? 7. What do you know of the Indian Mutiny that helps you to understand this story? 8. Who first heard the sound of the pipes? 9. How is this accounted for? 10. What did this sound mean to her? 11. Read the stirring lines that give the spirit of the martial music of the pipes. 12. Why did the piper change to the air “Auld Lang Syne”? What stanzas picture the feeling of those who heard this music? 13. What people wear the “tartan”? The “turban”? 14. What is the most interesting point in the story? 15. Does the story make clear the poet’s reason for saying that the “sweetest strain” the pipes ever played was at Lucknow?

Phrases

SPANISH WATERS

JOHN MASEFIELD

Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are ringing in my ears,

Like a slow sweet piece of music from the [gray forgotten years];

Telling tales, and beating tunes, and [bringing weary thought] to me

Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be.

There’s a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and it never stops to roar,

And it’s there we came to anchor, and it’s there we went ashore,

Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags of rotting trees,

Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up by the seas.

We anchored at Los Muertos when the dipping sun was red,

We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of Nigger Head;

And before the mist was on the Cay, before the day was done,

We were all ashore on Muertos with the gold that we had won.

We bore it through the marshes in a half-score battered chests,

Sinking, in the sucking quagmires, to the [sunburn on our breasts],

Heaving over tree-trunks, gasping, damning at the flies and heat,

Longing for a long drink, out of silver, in the ship’s cool lazareet.

The moon came white and ghostly as we laid the treasure down,

There was gear there’d make a beggarman as [rich as Lima Town],

Copper charms and silver trinkets from the chests of Spanish crews,

Gold doubloons and double moydores, louis d’ors and ortagues.

Clumsy yellow-metal earrings from the Indians of Brazil,

Uncut emeralds out of Rio, bezoar stone from Guayaquil,

Silver, [in the crude and fashioned], pots of old Arica bronze,

Jewels from the bones of Incas desecrated by the Dons.

We smoothed the place with mattocks, and we took and blazed the tree,

Which marks yon where the gear is hid that none will ever see,

And we [laid aboard the ship] again, and south away we steers,

Through the loud surf of Los Muertos which is beating in my ears.

I’m the last alive that knows it. All the rest have gone their ways,

Killed, or died, or come to anchor in the old Mulatas Cays,

And I go singing, fiddling, old and starved and in despair,

And I know where all that gold is hid, if I were only there.

It’s not the way to end it all. I’m old and nearly blind,

And an old man’s past’s a strange thing, for it never leaves his mind.

And I see in dreams, awhiles, the beach, the sun’s disc dipping red,

And the tall ship, under topsails, swaying in past Nigger Head.

I’d be glad to step ashore there. Glad to take a pick and go

To the lone blazed coco-palm tree in the place no others know,

And lift the gold and silver that has moldered there for years

By the loud surf of Los Muertos which is beating in my ears.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. John Masefield (1875-⸺) is an English poet and playwright. When a small boy he had a mania for running away from home; to satisfy this longing his father sent him to sea when he was fourteen years old, in charge of the captain of a sailing vessel. During his travels he collected much material which he afterward used in his poems. On one of his trips he landed in New York City, where he acquired considerable knowledge of American customs. Next to Kipling he is England’s greatest singer of her “Seven Seas and Five Oceans.”

Early in 1916 Masefield came to the United States on a lecture tour which aroused much interest in him and his writings. During the recent World War he served in France in connection with the Red Cross. He also served in the campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula and wrote a splendid account of that unfortunate undertaking.

Discussion. 1. Who is addressed in the first stanza? 2. What comparison do you find in this stanza? 3. Tell the story in your own words. 4. Where was the treasure secured? 5. What marks of the ballad do you find in this poem? 6. What do you particularly like in this poem? 7. Pronounce the following: quagmires; palm.

Phrases

KILMENY
(A Song of the Trawlers)

ALFRED NOYES

Dark, dark lay the drifters, [against the red west],

As they shot their [long meshes of steel] overside;

And the oily green waters were rocking to rest

When Kilmeny went out, at the [turn of the tide].

And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,

For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.

It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

She’d a gun at her bow that was [Newcastle’s best],

And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,

And a secret her skipper had never confessed,

Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride;

And a wireless that whispered above [like a gnome],

The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.

O it may have been mermaids that lured her from home,

But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest,

With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;

But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast;

And “Well done, Kilmeny!” the admiral cried.

Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come,

And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;

But late in the evening Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

There’s a [wandering shadow] that stares at the foam,

Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen,

Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Alfred Noyes (1880-⸺), an English poet, lives in London. He was educated at Oxford, where for three years he rowed on the college crew. As soon as his college days were over he devoted himself to literature, contributing to many English magazines. During the World War he wrote many stirring poems, of which “Kilmeny” is among the best. In 1918-1919 Mr. Noyes was professor of literature in Princeton University.

Discussion. 1. What picture does the first stanza give you? 2. What suggests to you the work in which the trawler was engaged? 3. Which stanza suggests the result of Kilmeny’s trip? 4. What was the magic that called Kilmeny to the quest? 5. What other poems of the sea have you read in this book? 6. Tell what you know about the author.

Phrases

THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Men of the Twenty-first

Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,

Weak with our wounds and our thirst,

Wanting our sleep and our food,

After a day and a night—

God, shall we ever forget!

Beaten and broke in the fight,

But sticking it—sticking it yet.

Trying to hold the line,

Fainting and spent and done,

Always the thud and the whine,

Always the yell of the Hun!

Northumberland, Lancaster, York,

Durham, and Somerset,

Fighting alone, worn to the bone,

But sticking it—sticking it yet.

Never a message of hope!

Never a word of cheer!

Fronting Hill 70’s [shell-swept slope],

With the dull dead plain in our rear.

Always the whine of the shell,

Always the roar of its burst,

Always the tortures of hell,

As [waiting and wincing] we cursed

Our luck and the guns and the Boche,

When our Corporal shouted, “Stand to!”

And I heard someone cry, “Clear the front for the Guards!”

And the Guards came through.

Our throats they were parched and hot,

But Lord, if you’d heard the cheers!

Irish and Welsh and Scot,

Coldstream and Grenadiers.

Two brigades, if you please,

Dressing as straight as a hem,

We—we were down on our knees,

Praying for us and for them!

Lord, I could speak for a week,

But how could you understand!

How should your cheeks be wet,

Such feelin’s don’t come to you.

But when can we or my mates forget,

When the Guards came through?

“Five yards left extend!”

It passed from rank to rank.

Line after line with never a bend,

And a touch of the London swank.

A trifle of [swank and dash],

Cool as a home parade,

Twinkle and glitter and flash,

Flinching never a shade,

With the shrapnel right in their face

Doing their Hyde Park stunt,

Keeping their swing at an easy pace,

[Arms at the trail], eyes front!

Man, it was great to see!

Man, it was fine to do!

It’s a cot and a hospital ward for me,

But I’ll tell ’em in Blighty, wherever I be,

How the Guards came through.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-⸺) is an English author. He was educated in Stonyhurst College and at the University of Edinburgh. In 1885 he was graduated as a doctor of medicine and soon afterwards began practice. It was about this time that his first book, A Study in Scarlet, was published. His greatest success came with the publication of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of detective stories that introduced a character who has become as famous as if he had actually lived. Other books that have added to his fame are The Lost World, The New Revelation, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. He has written many interesting articles on the World War, particularly descriptions of the western campaigns. In 1902 he was knighted.

Discussion. 1. Who is supposed to be telling the story? 2. Why were the soldiers of the Twenty-first so disheartened? 3. What effect upon them had the arrival of the Guards? 4. Do you think that you would have felt like cheering if you had been a soldier of the Twenty-first? 5. What effect upon you has the line “Dressing as straight as a hem”? 6. What picture does the last stanza give you? 7. Does the poet make you see the Guards as they came through? 8. What do the last three lines suggest? 9. What does “Blighty” mean to you? 10. Why does the one who is telling the story say that we could not understand?

Phrases