Explore "Lord Roberts" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
1914.
He passed in the very battle-smoke / Of the war that he had descried. / Three hundred mile of cannon spoke / When the Master-Gunner died.
He passed to the very sound of the guns; / But, before his eye grew dim, / He had seen the faces of the sons / Whose sires had served with him.
He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted each / With the old sure word of praise; / And there was virtue in touch and speech / As it had been in old days.
So he dismissed them and took his rest, / And the steadfast spirit went forth / Between the adoring East and West / And the tireless guns of the North.
Clean, simple, valiant, well-beloved, / Flawless in faith and fame, / Whom neither ease nor honours moved / An hair's-breadth from his aim.
Never again the war-wise face, / The weighed and urgent word / That pleaded in the market-place -- / Pleaded and was not heard!
Yet from his life a new life springs / Through all the hosts to come, / And Glory is the least of things / That follow this man home.