Page:Salt-water poems and ballads by Masefield, John, 1878-1967 Published 1916.djvu/17



NOT of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers

Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years,—

Rather the scorned—the rejected—the men hemmed in with the spears;

The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies,

Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,

The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes.

Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne,

Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown,

But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known.

Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road,

The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad,

The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load.

The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout,

The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout,

The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired lookout.