This page has been validated.
114
THE FIVE NATIONS
The twilight swallows the thicket—
The starlight reveals the ridge;
The whistle shrills to the picket
We are changing guard on the bridge.
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the empty metals shine—
No, not combatants—only
Details guarding the line.)
We slip through the broken panel
Of fence by the ganger's shed;
We drop to the waterless channel
And the lean track overhead;
We stumble on refuse of rations,
The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
And the endless night begins.
We hear the Hottentot herders
As the sheep click past to the fold—
And the click of the restless girders
As the steel contracts in the cold
