Page:The Five Nations.djvu/134

114 The twilight swallows the thicket—

The starlight reveals the ridge;

The whistle shrills to the picket

We are changing guard on the bridge.

(Few, forgotten and lonely,

Where the empty metals shine—

No, not combatants—only

Details guarding the line.)

We slip through the broken panel

Of fence by the ganger's shed;

We drop to the waterless channel

And the lean track overhead;

We stumble on refuse of rations,

The beef and the biscuit-tins;

We take our appointed stations,

And the endless night begins.

We hear the Hottentot herders

As the sheep click past to the fold—

And the click of the restless girders

As the steel contracts in the cold