Army
And go killing of his brother,
He'd have searched bank and vineyard
For a poacher of such worth,
And put you in a prison cell
To cool your summer's mirth.

And do you remember the old inn
With the blue saint above the door,[1]—
Simon Peter, who looked longingly
Upon our speckled store?—
He who loves all careless fishers
Of the river and the sea,
And prays that God shall save them
With his mates of Galilee.

And what a wild night we had
When we rode home again!
For the students were all dancing
And singing in the train;
And a tall man twanged a banjo
Till he fairly gave us fits;
And a porter ran up swearing,
And the banjo flew to bits.

We were all drunk as blazes,
Full of wine to burst.
But, by the sober lads of England,
Those Germans were the worst.
They were singing and dancing,
And shouting with delight;
And the carriage rocked with laughter
As we rushed into the night.

They are all dead now, Charley;
They were merry fellows then.
They are dust and scattered ashes
Washed by the rain.
They are crying in the darkness
Where a grayer planet spins.
But the Lord is kind to fishers
And has spared us in our sins.

Oh, the Lord is kind to fishers
Of the river and the sea
For the sake of Simon Peter
And the lads of Galilee!
For the sake of Simon Peter,
Who so gladly would us shrive,
We are walking in the sunlight,
We are breathing and alive.

And when the War is over
We'll fish awhile together,
We'll climb the Western mountains,
And walk the Western heather,
And the curlew and the wild grouse
Will wake the vales with crying,
And their soft rushing pinions
Will tremble by us, sighing.

All the dead shepherds
Will hear them in their rest.
But you mustn't heed dead shepherds
When you're fishing in the West;
You mustn't heed the lonely men
Who neither sing nor dance,
There'll be always ghosts there, Charley,
When the wind beats up from France.

It's the holy peace and quiet
Breathing from the Western skies
Which bring the stricken soul its rest
And still the heart's wild cries.
If I hadn't turned for healing
Where the moor to Heaven swells,
I'd have been a dead man, listening
To the mourning of the bells.

If God hadn't sent me healing
Where the mountain bares her breast,
I'd have gone wild and crazy
With the things that I'm oppressed.
All my mad, merry comrades
Of drink, and fight, and lust,
Are trodden into bloody clay
And blowing with the dust.

Some marched away with Hindenburg,
And some with General Kluck,
One under Austria's banners
With the devil's cards for luck.
All my dreams went with them,
All the dreams my land denied;
But they're smoke and drifting wreckage now
On the War's wild tide.

It was years since I left England,—
Almost singing to depart,—
She had cast a net about me,
And thrust a dagger in my heart.
But another country smiled to me
And made me quiet nooks,
Where men crushed for me the grapes of joy,
And talked to me of books.

She was a kind land to me once, Charley,
I had real joy in her once;
Her folk loved Shakespeare and Byron,
Shunned no dreamer for a dunce.
They sang old folk songs, noble opera;
Read Anglo-Saxon, old quaint sweets;
And there were no starved souls in her temples,