And when I come to the dim trail-end,
I who have been Life's rover,
This is all I would ask, my friend,
Over and over and over:

A little space on a stony hill
With never another near me,
Sky o' the North that's vast and still,
With a single star to cheer me;

Star that gleams on a moss-grey stone
Graven by those-who love me —
There would I lie alone, alone,
With a single pine above me;

Pine that the north wind whinnys through —
Oh, I have been Life's lover!
But there I'd lie and listen to
Eternity passing over.

Beyond the iron Dardanelles there's little left to save;
Yet he must fight lest grinning dogs defile his father's grave.
On burning sands or freezing heights, amongst the bones picked clean,
He fights in hunger and in rage, and keeps his rifle clean —
Lest dogs defile.

He fights and loses all the time. If you ask why or how,
He simply says, " We always fought and we are fighting now. "
He eats his salt at Islam's board for but a little while —
But he must fight and he must slave, and die — lest dogs defile.

Old Joe Hunt has gone to the front,
And he's as grey as a badger;
'Twas Bummer Smith he enlisted with,
The township's drunk and cadger.
They were forty-five and both alive
(The Bummer's eyes were shifty);
But because, 'twas said, of the lives they led,
They both looked more than fifty.

Old Joe Hunt has gone to the front.
I saw them both go sailing
( " By the tiller stood the priest, and the knight
Leaned over the quarter railing. " )
Or, I saw them both go steaming, I
Should have said, had I been ready —

My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter's chime
Will ring the curtain down on you.

The ship of skies
Foundered in the west
And its blazing prow
Sank off some thundering shore beyond the silence
And dark green of the world.

Or like ten rivers
The thin-spread clouds ran
Converging with vermilion and purple waters
On the western ledge
And pouring in flame over the world's edge ...

In those bright regions
Sails were blown beyond our trouble
And some great action
Moved like song ...

But here on tired Earth
The heavy mist filled the green runnels of valleys;
The weary air

It's farewell to Leeton, and farewell we say,
For we shall not see it for many a day;
We march in the ranks of ten thousand times ten,
And 'twill be a long time ere we come back again. —
Come back again,
Come back again:
It will be a long time ere we come back again.

We're off to the Front and we're taking our chance —
In a very few months we'll be trenching in France,
And wishing we'd taken, with foresight and care,
Some slabs of the Clayband for parapets there. —
Parapets there,
Parapets there:

Though she depart, a vision flitting,
If I these thoughts in words exhale:
I love you, you blonde maiden, sitting
Within your pure white beauty's veil.
I love you for your blue eyes dreaming,
Like moonlight moving over snow,
And 'mid the far-off forests beaming

“I'm taking pen in hand this night, and hard it is for me;
My poor old fingers tremble so, my hand is stiff and slow,
And even with my glasses on I'm troubled sore to see. . . .
You'd little know your mother, boy; you'd little, little know.
You mind how brisk and bright I was, how straight and trim and smart;
'Tis weariful I am the now, and bent and frail and grey.
I'm waiting at the road's end, lad; and all that's in my heart,
Is just to see my boy again before I'm called away.”

“Oh well I mind the sorry day you crossed the gurly sea;

Carelesnesse joyn'd with greatnesse doth not fit.
Honour requires we carefull be of it,
And as a man that stands on steeple high,
Rightly by prudence guided Carefully ,
Looking about and wary of each hand,
Endevouring more safely still to stand,
So is't with him that is in dignity.

Secure he should not be and Carelesly ,
Entending not in safety to remaine,
True noblenesse by Carelesnesse thus staine.
O you appeare not carelesse though on mount,
Nobly you stand but doe the hazard count,
Ev'n millions so your honour doth surmount.

They say I fought for destruction — now what would I seek to destroy,
Who have builded and dreamed and builded since days when I was a boy?
They say I would crush by millions — have we crushed the weak and the small
Since Frederick fought for Prussia, seven millions against you all?
Say, when were the Poles contented — with themselves, or our foes, or us?
Was Schleswig-Holstein happy? Or the rest of them prosperous?
You say we are Brutes and Barbarians, and filthy, at board, or in bed —