Page:Salt-water poems and ballads by Masefield, John, 1878-1967 Published 1916.djvu/18

4 Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth,

The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth;—

Mine he the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth!

Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold;

Mine he a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.

Of the maimed, of the halt and the hlind in the rain and the cold—

Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told.