They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,

But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy wait outside";

But it's "Special train for Atkins," when the trooper's on the tide,

The troopship's on the tide, my boys, etc.

O, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; An' hustlin' drunken sodgers when they're goin' large a bit Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “ Tommy, ow's yer soul?

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But it's Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,

The drums begin to roll, my boys, etc.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards

too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Tommy
fall be'ind";

But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's
trouble in the wind,

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, etc.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our

face,

The Widow's uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute! "

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But it's Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot;

An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;

An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool-you bet that Tommy sees!

RECESSIONAL

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word-
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Born in 1867, Lionel (Pigot) Johnson received a classical education at Oxford, and his poetry is a faithful reflection of his studies in Greek and Latin literatures. Though he allied himself with the modern Irish poets, his Celtic origin is a literary myth; Johnson, having been converted to Catholicism in 1891, became imbued with Catholic and, later, with Irish traditions. His verse, while sometimes strained and overdecorated, is chastely designed, rich and, like that of the Cavalier poets of the seventeenth century, mystically devotional. Poems (1895) contains his best work.

Johnson died in 1902 as a result of an accident.

MYSTIC AND CAVALIER

Go from me: I am one of those who fall.
What! hath no cold wind swept your heart at all,
In my sad company? Before the end,

Go from me, dear my friend!

Yours are the victories of light: your feet
Rest from good toil, where rest is brave and sweet:
But after warfare in a mourning gloom,

I rest in clouds of doom.

Have you not read so, looking in these eyes?
Is it the common light of the pure skies
Lights up their shadowy depths? The end is set:
Though the end be not yet.

When gracious music stirs, and all is bright,
And beauty triumphs through a courtly night;
When I too joy, a man like other men:
Yet, am I like them, then?

And in the battle, when the horsemen sweep
Against a thousand deaths, and fall on sleep:
Who ever sought that sudden calm, if I

Sought not? yet could not die!

Seek with thine eyes to pierce this crystal sphere:
Canst read a fate there, prosperous and clear?
Only the mists, only the weeping clouds,
Dimness and airy shrouds.

Beneath, what angels are at work? What powers
Prepare the secret of the fatal hours?

See! the mists tremble, and the clouds are stirred:
When comes the calling word?

The clouds are breaking from the crystal ball,
Breaking and clearing: and I look to fall.
When the cold winds and airs of portent sweep,
My spirit may have sleep.

O rich and sounding voices of the air!
Interpreters and prophets of despair:
Priests of a fearful sacrament! I come,
To make with you mine home.

ERNEST DOWSON

Ernest Dowson was born at Belmont Hill in Kent in 1867. His great-uncle was Alfred Domett (Browning's “Waring”), who was at one time Prime Minister of New Zealand. Dowson, practically an invalid all his life, hid himself in miserable surroundings; for almost two years he lived in sordid supper-houses known as 'cabmen's shelters." He literally drank himself to death.

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His delicate and fantastic poetry was an attempt to escape from a reality too big and brutal for him. His passionate lyric, “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion," a triumph of despair and disillusion, is an outburst in which Dowson epitomized himself "One of the greatest lyrical poems of our time," writes Arthur Symons; "in it he has for once said everything, and he has said it to an intoxicating and perhaps immortal music.'

Dowson died obscure in 1900, one of the finest of modern minor poets. His life was the tragedy of a weak nature buffeted by a strong and merciless environment.

TO ONE IN BEDLAM

With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw that, miserable, line
His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares.

Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchanted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?

O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!

ENVOY

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;

I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

A. E.

(George William Russell)

At Lurgan, a tiny town in the north of Ireland, George William Russell was born in 1867. He moved to Dublin when he was ten years old and, as a young man, helped to form the group that gave rise to the Irish Renascence the group of which William Butler Yeats,