Sleep on (my Love!) in thy cold bed Never to be disquieted.
My last Good-night! Thou wilt not wake Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age, or grief, or sickness must Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room My heart keeps empty in thy tomb. Stay for me there: I will not fail To meet thee in that hollow vale. And think not much of my delay; I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
‘An Exequy’ l. 81 (written for his wife Anne who died in 1624)
But hark! My pulse, like a soft drum Beats my approach, tells thee I come; And, slow howe’er my marches be, I shall at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on, And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear! (forgive The crime) I am content to live Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.
‘An Exequy’ l. 111 (written for his wife Anne who died in 1624)
We that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day Rose with delight to us, and with them set, Must learn the hateful art, how to forget.
‘The Surrender’
11.35 Martin Luther King 1929-68
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
In ‘New York Journal-American’ 10 September 1962, p. 1
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Alabama, 16 April 1963, in ‘Atlantic Monthly’ August 1963, p. 78
The Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is
the presence of justice.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Alabama, 16 April 1963, in ‘Atlantic Monthly’ August 1963, p. 81
I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Speech in Detroit, 23 June 1963, in James Bishop ‘The Days of Martin Luther King’ (1971) ch. 4
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Speech at Civil Rights March in Washington, 28 August 1963, in ‘New York Times’ 29 August 1963, p. 21
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Speech at St Louis, 22 March 1964, in ‘St Louis Post-Dispatch’ 23 March 1964
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
‘Strength to Love’ (1963) ch. 7
A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ (1967) ch. 4
I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land...So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.
Speech in Memphis, 3 April 1968 (the day before his assassination), in ‘New York Times’ 4 April 1968, p. 24
11.36 Stoddard King 1889-1933
There’s a long, long trail awinding Into the land of my dreams, Where the nightingales are singing And a white moon beams;
There’s a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true,
Till the day when I’ll be going down That long, long trail with you.
‘There’s a Long, Long Trail’ (1913 song)
11.37 Charles Kingsley 1819-75
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon; Oh the pleasant sight to see
Shires and towns from Airly Beacon, While my love climbed up to me!
‘Airly Beacon’
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon; Oh the weary haunt for me,
All alone on Airly Beacon, With his baby on my knee!
‘Airly Beacon’
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make Life, Death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song.
‘A Farewell’ (1858)
What we can we will be, Honest Englishmen.
Do the work that’s nearest, Though it’s dull at whiles, Helping, when we meet them, Lame dogs over stiles.
‘Letter to Thomas Hughes’
’Tis the hard grey weather Breeds hard English men.
‘Ode to the North-East Wind’
Come; and strong within us Stir the Vikings’ blood; Bracing brain and sinew; Blow, thou wind of God!
‘Ode to the North-East Wind’
‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee.’
The western wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she.
‘The Sands of Dee’
The western tide crept up along the sand, And o’er and o’er the sand,
And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land: And never home came she.
‘The Sands of Dee’
Three fishers went sailing away to the west, Away to the west as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town.
‘The Three Fishers’
For men must work, and women must weep, And there’s little to earn, and many to keep, Though the harbour bar be moaning.
‘The Three Fishers’
When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away:
Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day.
‘Young and Old’ (from ‘The Water Babies’, 1863)
To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.
‘Health and Education’ (1874) p. 20
We have used the Bible as if it was a constable’s handbook—an opium-dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they are being overloaded.
‘Letters to the Chartists’ no. 2.
As thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his neighbour’s goods.
‘The Water Babies’ (1863) ch. 4
Eustace is a man no longer; he is become a thing, a tool, a Jesuit.
‘Westward Ho!’ (1855) ch. 23
Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.
Reviewing J. A. Froude’s History of England, in ‘Macmillan’s Magazine’ January 1864
A clean upstanding chap like you? Sure, if your throat ’tis hard to slit, Slit your girl’s, and swing for it.
Like enough, you won’t be glad, When they come to hang you, lad: But bacon’s not the only thing
That’s cured by hanging from a string.
‘Two Poems, after A. E. Housman’ (1933) no. 1
’Tis Summer Time on Bredon, And now the farmers swear:
The cattle rise and listen
In valleys far and near,
And blush at what they hear.
But when the mists in autumn On Bredon top are thick, And happy hymns of farmers Go up from fold and rick,
The cattle then are sick.
‘Two Poems, after A. E. Housman’ (1933) no. 2
God’s apology for relations.
On friends, in Michael Holroyd ‘The Best of Hugh Kingsmill’ (1970) introduction
Society is based on the assumption that everyone is alike and no one is alive.
In Michael Holroyd ‘Hugh Kingsmill’ (1964)
11.39 Neil Kinnock 1942—
I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old.
On the prospect of a Conservative re-election, in speech at Bridgend, 7 June 1983; ‘Guardian’ 8 June 1983
They left their guts on Goose Green.
Referring to British soldiers of the Falklands War, a remark he was later to retract, in ‘Hansard’
11.40 Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936
When you’ve shouted ‘Rule Britannia’, when you’ve sung ‘God save the Queen’— When you’ve finished killing Kruger with your mouth—
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For a gentleman in Kharki ordered South?
He’s an absent-minded beggar and his weaknesses are great— But we and Paul must take him as we find him—
He is out on active service, wiping something off a slate— And he’s left a lot o’ little things behind him!
‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ (1899) st. 1
England’s on the anvil—hear the hammers ring— Clanging from the Severn to the Tyne!
Never was a blacksmith like our Norman King—
England’s being hammered, hammered, hammered into line!
‘The Anvil’ (1927)
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of earth!
‘The Ballad of East and West’ (1892)
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south, With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth. Four things greater than all things are,— Women and Horses and Power and War.
‘The Ballad of the King’s Jest’ (1892)
Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin’ over Africa— (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up and down again!)
‘Boots’ (1903).
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
‘Common Form’ (1919)
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart; But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: ‘It’s clever, but is it Art?’
‘The Conundrum of the Workshops’ (1892)
For they’re hangin’ Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, The regiment’s in ’ollow square—they’re hangin’ him to-day; They’ve taken of his buttons off an’ cut his stripes away,
An’ they’re hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’.
‘Danny Deever’ (1892)
The ’eathen in ’is blindness bows down to wood an’ stone; ‘E don’t obey no orders unless they is ’is own;
‘E keeps ’is side-arms awful: ’e leaves ’em all about,
An’ then comes up the Regiment an’ pokes the ’eathen out.
‘The ‘Eathen’ (1896).
The ’eathen in ’is blindness must end where ’e began.
But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man!
‘The ‘Eathen’ (1896)
Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?— The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag.
‘The English Flag’ (1892)
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
‘The Female of the Species’ (1919)
There is but one task for all— For each one life to give. What stands if freedom fall? Who dies if England live?
‘For All We Have and Are’ (1914) p. 2
So ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ’ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fightin’ man; An’ ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your ’ayrick ’ead of ’air— You big black boundin’ beggar—for you broke a British square!
‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ (1892)
We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray, Baa-aa-aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
‘Gentlemen-Rankers’ (1892)
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing:—’Oh, how beautiful!’ and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner-knives.
‘The Glory of the Garden’ (1911)
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:— That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.
‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’ (1927)
The uniform ’e wore Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind.
‘Gunga Din’ (1892)
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
‘Gunga Din’ (1892)
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!
‘In the Neolithic Age’ (1893)
But I consort with long-haired things In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art, And ‘theories’ and ‘goals’,
And moo and coo with women-folk About their blessed souls.
‘In Partibus’ (1909)
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.
‘The Islanders’ (1903)
I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it, An’ now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you ’ave known o’ the others The less will you settle to one.
‘The Ladies’ (1896)
When you get to a man in the case, They’re like as a row of pins—
For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady Are sisters under their skins!
‘The Ladies’ (1896)
And Ye take mine honour from me if Ye take away the sea!
‘The Last Chantey’ (1896)
There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid;
But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade.
‘L’Envoi’ (‘Barrack-Room Ballads’, 1892)
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.
‘L’Envoi’ (‘The Story of the Gadsbys’, 1890)
If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
‘The Light That Failed’ (1891) dedication
The Liner she’s a lady, an’ she never looks nor ’eeds—
The Man-o’-War’s ’er ’usband, ’an ’e gives ’er all she needs; But, oh, the little cargo boats that sail the wet seas roun’, They’re just the same as you ’an me a-plyin’ up and down!
‘The Liner She’s a Lady’ (1896)
It’s north you may run to the rime-ringed sun, Or south to the blind Horn’s hate;
Or east all the way into Mississippi Bay, Or west to the Golden Gate.
‘The Long Trail’ (1918)
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, an’ the temple-bells they say:
‘Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!’ Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old flotilla lay:
Can’t you ’ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay? On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’-fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!
‘Mandalay’ (1892)
An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot, An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot.
‘Mandalay’ (1892)
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments an’ a man can raise a thirst.
‘Mandalay’ (1892)
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: ‘A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’
‘The Naulahka’ (1892) ch. 5
A Nation spoke to a Nation,
A Throne sent word to a Throne: ‘Daughter am I in my mother’s house, But mistress in my own.
The gates are mine to open, As the gates are mine to close,
And I abide by my Mother’s House.’ Said our Lady of the Snows.
‘Our Lady of the Snows’ (1898)
The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth-point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.
‘Pagett, MP’ (1886)
There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
‘The Power of the Dog’ (1909)
What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ (1906) ‘Harp Song of the Dane Women’
Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark— Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ (1906) ‘A Smuggler’s Song’
Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ (1906) ‘A Tree Song’
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!
‘Recessional’ (1897)
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!
‘Recessional’ (1897)
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe— Such boasting as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law.
‘Recessional’ (1897)
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
