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Home  »  A Treasury of War Poetry  »  Lord Kitchener

George Herbert Clarke, ed. (1873–1953). A Treasury of War Poetry. 1917.

Robert Bridges

Lord Kitchener

UNFLINCHING hero, watchful to foresee

And face thy country’s peril wheresoe’er,

Directing war and peace with equal care,

Till by long duty ennobled thou wert he

Whom England call’d and bade “Set my arm free

To obey my will and save my honour fair,”—

What day the foe presumed on her despair

And she herself had trust in none but thee:

Among Herculean deeds the miracle

That mass’d the labour of ten years in one

Shall be thy monument. Thy work was done

Ere we could thank thee; and the high sea swell

Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell

By the lone Orkneys, at the set of sun.
June 8, 1916