Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/323

 ��MARCHING ON TANGA

^Marching on Tanga, marching the parched phiin Of wavering spcar-grass by Pangani river, England came to me — me who had always ta'en But never given before — England, the giver, In a vision of tall poplar trees that shiver On still evenings of summer, after rain, By Slapton Ley, where reed-beds start and quiver ^\^len scarce a ripple moves the upland grain.

Then I thanked God that now I had suffered pain

And, as the parched plain, thirst, and lain awake

Shivering all night through till cold daybreak :

In that I count these sufferings my gain

And her acknowledgment. Nay, more, would

fain

Suffer as many more for her sweet sake.

— Francis Brett Young.

With the British Expeditionary Force, Marago-Opuni, German East Africa. June, 1916.

��Printed in the Uuit«d titatea of America.

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