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Robert W Service - The Song Of The Soldier-Born
Work rating: Medium

Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.

Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion;
A soldier`s billet at night and a soldier`s ration;
A heart that leaps to the fight with a soldier`s passion.

For I hold as a simple faith there`s no denying:
The trade of a soldier`s the only trade worth plying;
The death of a soldier`s the only death worth dying.

So let me go and leave your safety behind me;
Go to the spaces of hazard where nothing shall bind me;
Go till the word is War — and then you will find me.

Then you will call me and claim me because you will need me;
Cheer me and gird me and into the battle-wrath speed me. . . .
And when it`s over, spurn me and no longer heed me.

For guile and a purse gold-greased are the arms you carry;
With deeds of paper you fight and with pens you parry;
You call on the hounds of the law your foes to harry.

You with your "Art for its own sake", posing and prinking;
You with your "Live and be merry", eating and drinking;
You with your "Peace at all hazard", from bright blood shrinking.

Fools! I will tell you now: though the red rain patters,
And a million of men go down, it`s little it matters. . . .
There`s the Flag upflung to the stars, though it streams in tatters.

There`s a glory gold never can buy to yearn and to cry for;
There`s a hope that`s as old as the sky to suffer and sigh for;
There`s a faith that out-dazzles the sun to martyr and die for.

Ah no! it`s my dream that War will never be ended;
That men will perish like men, and valour be splendid;
That the Flag by the sword will be served, and honour defended.

That the tale of my fights will never be ancient story;
That though my eye may be dim and my beard be hoary,
I`ll die as a soldier dies on the Field of Glory.

So give me a strong right arm for a wrong`s swift righting;
Stave of a song on my lips as my sword is smiting;
Death in my boots may-be, but fighting, fighting.
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