PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP-ANIMALS

Then feed us and break us and handle and groom,
And give us good riders and plenty of room,
And launch us in column of squadron and see
The Way of the War-horse to 'Bonnie Dundee'!

Screw-Gun Mules

As me and my companions were scrambling up a hill, The path was lost in rolling stones, but we went forward

still;

For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up everywhere,

And it's our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to spare!

Good luck to every sergeant, then, that lets us pick our road!

Bad luck to all the driver-men that cannot pack a load! For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up everywhere,

And it's our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to spare!

Commissariat Camels

We haven't a camelty tune of our own
To help us trollop along,

But every neck is a hair-trombone
(Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hair-trombone!)
And this is our marching-song:
Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't!
Pass it along the line!

Somebody's pack has slid from his back,
'Wish it were only mine!

Somebody's load has tipped off in the road-
Cheer for a halt and a row!
Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh!
Somebody's catching it now!

All the Beasts Together

Children of the Camp are we,
Serving each in his degree;
Children of the yoke and goad,
Pack and harness, pad and load.
See our line across the plain,
Like a heel-rope bent again,
Reaching, writhing, rolling far,
Sweeping all away to war!
While the men that walk beside,
Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed,
Cannot tell why we or they
March and suffer day by day.
Children of the Camp are we,
Serving each in his degree;
Children of the yoke and goad,
Pack and harness, pad and load.

CHAPTER HEADINGS

Beast and Man in India

HEY killed a child to please the Gods
In earth's young penitence,
And I have bled in that Babe's stead
Because of innocence.

I bear the sins of sinful men

That have no sin of my own;
They drive me forth to Heaven's wrath
Unpastured and alone.

I am the meat of sacrifice,

The ransom of man's guilt,

For they give my life to the altar knife
Wherever shrine is built.

'The Goat.'

Between the waving tufts of jungle-grass,
Up from the river as the twilight falls,
Across the dust-beclouded plain they pass
On to the village walls.

Great is the sword and mighty is the pen,

But greater far the labouring ploughman's blade, For on its oxen and its husbandmen

An Empire's strength is laid.

"The Oxen.'

The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant,
The saplings reeling in the path he trod,
Declare his might-our lord the Elephant,
Chief of the ways of God.

The black bulk heaving where the oxen pant,
The bowed head toiling where the guns careen,
Declare our might-our slave the Elephant,

And servant of the Queen.

'The Elephant.'

Dark children of the mere and marsh,

Wallow and waste and lea;

Outcaste they wait at the village gate
With folk of low degree.

Their pasture is in no man's land,
Their food the cattle's scorn;
Their rest is mire and their desire
The thicket and the thorn.

But woe to those who break their sleep,
And woe to those who dare

To rouse the herd-bull from his keep,

The wild boar from his lair!

'Pigs and Buffaloes.'

The beasts are very wise,

Their mouths are clean of lies;
They talk one to the other,
Bullock to bullock's brother
Resting after their labours,
Each in stall with his neighbours.
But man with goad and whip,
Breaks up their fellowship,

CHAPTER HEADINGS

Shouts in their silky ears
Filling their souls with fears,
When he has ploughed the land,
He says: "They understand.'
But the beasts in stall together,
Freed from the yoke and tether,
Say as the torn flanks smoke-
'Nay, 'twas the whip that spoke.'

Life's Handicap

There's a convict more in the Central Jail
Behind the old mud wall;

There's a lifter less on the Border trail,
And the Queen's peace over all,

Dear boys,

The Queen's peace over all!

For we must bear our leader's blame,
On us the shame will fall,

If we lift our hand from a fettered land

And the Queen's peace over all,

Dear boys,

The Queen's peace over all!

"The Head of the District.'

The doors were wide, the story saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith,
He might not speak and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron's minniver.

Speechless and strengthless a shadow thin,
He roved the castle to find his kin.