That my Lord gives me.”[6]
Not a week after this event, one of those strange coincidences of which life is full, if we only noticed them, occurred. Lilly sent me a stirring little song on this very subject, written by Henry Newbolt, a well known lawyer of London, and I will transcribe its two last verses, because they so well illustrate what I have said about the influence of this ancient school cry,
“The sand of the desert is sodden red,
Red with the wreck of a square that broke—
The Gattling’s jammed, and the Colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The River of Death has brimmed his banks,
And England’s far, and Honour’s a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks,
‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’