They turned them again to the wilderness
Like shadows amid the night,
Away to the silence and lonely camp,
For ever from England's sight;
But they heard the call, and the ones to fall
Remembered throughout their pain,
When the King was in need of their service
The King had not called in vain.
* * * * * * *
Would ye know them, these men of the Legion?
Then seek where the trails divide;
In the gloom they are waiting the message,
Recalling them to your side.
When the squares shall be shattered and broken.
And victory's songs are stilled,
Then the dream that I dreamed of to-morrow,
The dream shall be e'en fulfilled.
THE DESERTED COAST
(A Story of the Suez Canal)
Alone, yes, alone, a deserted coast,
Though once I was lord of all;
A king, and a fear, in the Southern Sea,
To men who obeyed my call.
Yet long was my reign, and my triumphs great,
In days that are dead and gone;
And now I am waiting, my voices dumb,
A giant of my glory shorn.
I know they are passing me in the North
By way of the great canal,
And mocking the passage around the Cape,
Where I and my victims dwell;
Forsaken, undone, but I wait my chance,
With wanderers, sorely pressed,
The ones who at last will my boundaries pass,
To fall on my waiting breast.
Alone, but for one who will ever sail,
For aye in my mighty grasp;
The Dutchman, who, trying to round my coast,
Was felled by my raging blast;
For the story's true of the spectral crew
Who wander amid the gloom,
While my surges sing a deathless hymn,
The song of the Dutchman's doom.
He'd a mighty ship, and he dared my wrath
With haughty contempt and pride,
And a scornful sneer, which I turned to fear
As vainly escape he tried;
Well I knew his woe, as he tried to go,
In spite of my raging storm,
With a bragging curse, which could not disperse
The fear that was in him born.
How I drew him on, and the moonlight shone
On faces so drawn and white,
And I mocked the care that was written there
Aloud in my wild delight;
There was naught to save from my grave,
I watched them, as one by one
To my rest were borne, in the early morn,
Believing their work was done.