And Green of Kensington, estrayed to view
In three short months the world he never knew,
Stares with blind eyes upon the Quartered Flag
And sees no more than yellow, red and blue.
But we, the gypsies of the East, but we—
Waifs of the land and wastrels of the sea—
Come nearer home beneath the Quartered Flag
Than ever home shall come to such as we.
The camp is struck, the bungalow decays,
Dead friends and houses desert mark our ways,
Till sickness send us down to Prince's Dock
To meet the changeless use of many days.
Bound in the wheel of Empire, one by one,
The chain-gangs of the East from sire to son,
The Exiles' Line takes out the exiles' line
And ships them homeward when their work is done.
How runs the old indictment? "Dear and slow,"
So much and twice so much. We gird, but go.
For all the soul of our sad East is there,
Beneath the house-flag of the P. and O.
THE LONG TRAIL
THERE'S a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
And the ricks stand grey to the sun,
Singing: "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
"And your English summer's done."
