Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.

Edgehill Fight

NAKED and grey the Cotswolds stand

Beneath the autumn sun,

And the stubble-fields on either hand

Where Stour and Avon run.

There is no change in the patient land

That has bred us every one.

She should have passed in cloud and fire

And saved us from this sin

Of war—red war—’twixt child and sire,

Household and kith and kin,

In the heart of a sleepy Midland shire,

With the harvest scarcely in.

But there is no change as we meet at last

On the brow-head or the plain,

And the raw astonished ranks stand fast

To slay or to be slain

By the men they knew in the kindly past

That shall never come again—

By the men they met at dance or chase,

In the tavern or the hall,

At the justice-bench and the market-place,

At the cudgel-play or brawl—

Of their own blood and speech and race,

Comrades or neighbours all!

More bitter than death this day must prove

Whichever way it go,

For the brothers of the maids we love

Make ready to lay low

Their sisters’ sweethearts, as we move

Against our dearest foe.

Thank Heaven! At last the trumpets peal

Before our strength gives way.

For King or for the Commonweal

No matter which they say,

The first dry rattle of new-drawn steel

Changes the world to-day!