The Young Guard

E. W. Hornung

The Young Guard

CONSECRATION

CHILDREN we deemed you all the daysWe vexed you with our care:But in a Universe ablaze,What was your childish share?To rush upon the flames of Hell,To quench them with your blood!To be of England's flower that fellEre yet it brake the bud!And we who wither where we grew,And never shed but tears,As children now would follow youThrough the remaining years;Tread' in the steps we thought to guide,As firmly as you trod;And keep the name you glorifiedClean before matt and God.

LORD'S LEAVE

(1915)

NO Lord's this year: no silken lawn on whichA dignified and dainty throng meanders.The Schools take guard upon a fierier pitchSomewhere in Flanders.Bigger the cricket here; yet some who triedIn vain to earn a Colour while at EtonHave found a place upon an England sideThat can't be beaten!A demon bowler's bowling with his head —His heart's as black as skins in Carolina!Either he breaks, or shoots almost as deadAs Anne Regina;While the deep-field-gun, trained upon yourstumps,From concrete grand-stand far beyond thebound'ry,Lifts up his ugly mouth and fairly pumpsShells from Krupp's foundry.But like the time the game is out of joint —No screen, and too much mud for cricketlover;Both legs go slip, and there's sufficient pointIn extra cover!Cricket? 'Tis Sanscrit to the super-Hun —Cheap cross between Caligula and Cassius,To whom speech, prayer, and warfare are allone —Equally gaseous!Playing a game's beyond him and his hordes;Theirs but to play the snake or wolf orvulture:Better one sporting lesson learnt at Lord'sThan all their Kultur…Sinks a torpedoed Phoebus from our sight;Over the field of play see darkness stealing;Only in this one game, against the lightThere's no appealing.Now for their flares… and now at last thestars…Only the stars now, in their heavenly million,Glisten and blink for pity on our scarsFrom the Pavilion.

LAST POST

(1915)

LAST summer, centuries ago,I watched the postman's lantern glow,As night by night on leaden feetHe twinkled down our darkened street.So welcome on his beaten track,The bent man with the bulging sack!But dread of every sleepless couch,A whistling imp with leathern pouch!And now I meet him in the way,And earth is Heaven, night is Day,For oh! there shines before his lampAn envelope without a stamp!Address in pencil; overhead,The Censor's triangle in red.Indoors and up the stair I bound:One from the boy, still safe, still sound!"Still merry in a dubious trenchThey've taken over from the French;Still making light of duty done;Still full of Tommy, Fritz, and fun!Still finding War of games the cream,And his platoon a priceless team —Still running it by sportsman's rule,Just as he ran his house at school."Still wild about the 'bombing stunt'He makes his hobby at the front.Still trustful of his wondrous luck —Prepared to take on old man Kluck!'"Awed only in the peaceful spells,And only scornful of their shells,His beaming eye yet found delightIn ruins lit by flares at night,In clover field and hedgerow green,Apart from cover or a screen,In Nature spurting spick-and-spanFor all the devilries of Man.He said those weeks of blood and tearsWere worth his score of radiant years.He said he had not lived before —Our boy who never dreamt of War!He gave us of his own dear glow,Last summer, centuries ago.Bronzed leaves still cling to every bough.I don't waylay the postman now.Doubtless upon his nightly beatHe still comes twinkling down our street.I am not there with straining eye —A whistling imp could tell you why.

THE OLD BOYS

(1917)

WHO is the one with the empty sleeve?""Some sport who was in the swim.""And the one with the ribbon who's home onleave?""Good Lord! I remember him!A hulking fool, low down in the school,And no good at games was he —All fingers and thumbs – and very few chums.(I wish he'd shake hands with me!)""Who is the one with the heavy stick,Who seems to walk from the shoulder?""Why, many's the goal you have watched himkick!""He's looking a lifetime older.Who is the one that's so full of fun —I never beheld a blither —Yet his eyes are fixt as the furrow betwixt?""He cannot see out of either,""Who are the ones that we cannot see,Though we feel them as near as near?In Chapel one felt them bend the knee,At the match one felt them cheer.In the deep still shade of the Colonnade,In the ringing quad's full light,They are laughing here, they are chaffing there,Yet never in sound or sight.""Oh, those are the ones who never shall leave,As they once were afraid they would!They marched away from the school at eve,But at dawn came back for good,With deathless blooms from uncoffin'd tombsTo lay at our Founder's shrine.As many are they as ourselves to-day,And their place is yours and mine.""But who are the ones they can help or harm?""Each small boy, never so new,Has an Elder Brother to take his arm,And show him the thing to do —And the thing to resist with a doubled fist,If he'd be nor knave nor fool —And the Game to play if he'd tread the wayOf the School behind the school."

RUDDDY YOUNG GINGER

(1915)

RUDDY young Ginger was somewhere in camp,War broke it up in a day,Packing cadets of the steadier stampHome with the smallest delay.Ginger braves town in his O.T.C. rags —Beards a Staff Marquis – the limb!Saying, "Your son, Sir, is one of my fags,"Gets a Commission through him.Then to his tailor's for khaki complet;Then to Pall Mall for a sword;Lastly, a wire to his people to say,"Left school – joined the Line – are youbored?"And it was a bit cool(A term's fees in the poolBy a rule of the school).There were those who said "Fool!"Of young Ginger.Ruddy young Ginger! Who gave him that name?Tommies who had his own nerve!"Into 'im, Ginger!" was heard in a gameWith a neighbouring Special Reserve.Blushing and grinning and looking fifteen,Ginger, with howitzer punt,Bags his man's wind as succinctly and cleanAs he hopes to bag Huns at the front.Death on recruits who fall out by the way,Sentries who yawn at their post,Yet he sang such a song at the Y.M.C.A.That the C.O. turned green as a ghost!Less the song than the stance,And the dissolute dance,Drew a glance so askanceThat… they packed him to France,Little Ginger.Next month, to the haunts of fine Ladies andLordsI ventured, in Grosvenor Square:The stateliest chambers were hospital wards —And ruddy young Ginger was there.In spite of his hurts he looked never so red,Nor ever less shy or sedate,Though his hair had been cropped (by machine-gun, he said)And bandages turbaned his pate.He was mostly in holes – but his cheek wasintact!I could not but notice, with joy,The loveliest Sisters had most to transactWith ruddy young Ginger – some boy!Slaying Huns by the tons,With a smile like a nun's —Oh! of all the brave ones,All the sons of our guns —Give me Ginger!

THE BALLAD OF ENSIGN JOY

I T is the story ofEnsign JoyAnd the obsoleterank withalThat I love for each gentle EnglishboyWho jumped to his country'scall.By their fire and fun, and thedeeds they've done,I would gazette them Second tononeWho faces a gun in Gaul!)IT is also the story of ErmyntrudeA less appropriate nameFor the dearest prig and theprettiest prude!But under it, all the same,The usual consanguineous squadHad made her an honest childof God —And left her to play the game.IT was just when the grind ofthe Special Reserves,Employed upon Coast Defence,Was getting on every Ensign'snerves —Sick-keen to be draftedhence —That they met and played tennisand danced and sang,The lad with the laugh and theschoolboy slang,The girl with the eyes intense. YET it wasn't for him that shelanguished and sighed,But for all of our dear deemedyouth;And it wasn't for her, but hersex, that he cried,If he could but have probedthe truth !Did she? She would none of hishot young heart;As khaki escort he's tall andsmart,As lover a shade uncouth.HE went with his draft. Shereturned to her craft.He wrote in his merry vein:She read him aloud, and theStudio laughed!Ermyntrude bore the strain.He was full of gay bloodshed andOld Man Fritz:His flippancy sent her friendsinto fits.Ermyntrude frowned withpain.HIS tales of the Sergeant whoswore so hardLeft Ermyntrude cold andprim;The tactless truth of the picturejarred,And some of his jokes weregrim.Yet, let him but skate upontender ice,And he had to write to her twiceor thriceBefore she would answer him.YET once she sent him a

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