Salt-Water Ballads

NOT of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years, - Rather the scorned-the rejected-the men hemmed in with the spears; The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies, Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries, The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes. Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne, Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown, But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known