Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOBLESSE OBLIGE Premier Marquis of England, With eager Methuen he came; Premier Marquis of England, And never a son to his name. Paying his debt to England, Against the bullets he stood. Ah, Premier Marquis of England, The Modder likes noble blood. Fifteenth Marquis of Winchester! The first of his gallant race, The earliest Marquis of Winchester, Was Lord Treasurer unto his Grace Edward the Sixth, nor Winchester Has been wanting in duty since. The fifteenth Marquis of Winchester Would not be the first to wince. Sweet be his slumber in Africa, As in his ancestral vault! Whoever has sinned against Africa, The soldier is not at fault. Let Chamberlain answer for Africa At the Bar all burning white, But in India, Egypt, Africa, Is the fallen soldier right. THE BLACK WATCH They had trained us into their treasons, And their withering welcome of lead Might have been the best of reasons Why another brigade had fled, But we Highlanders have our fancies, Our glamour of old romances, And so we lie dying and dead. We make dour faces together, Though we're not the lads for a fuss, But it's hardly like lounging on heather To writhe in your life-blood, thus. No touch of heather and gowan, No glint of the red-berried rowan Ever again for us. The cunning of this land's breeding Passes the wit of men. Our general — yonder he's bleeding — Marshalled us on as a hen Might cluck her brood through the shadows, Over the dawn-dewy meadows, Down to the fox's den. God rest him! 'Twas never an error To follow a glorious chief. If a man's conquered only by terror, Let Britain be proud in her grief, For the last Boer bullet shall whistle Ere we change the sturdy Scotch thistle For the sign of the aspen leaf....