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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408723" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Riding Round the Lines</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dust and smoke against the sunrise out where grim disaster lurks<br>And a broken sky-line looming like unfinished railway works,<br>And a trot, trot, trot and canter down inside the belt of mines:<br>It is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is riding round his lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the scarecrows from the trenches, haggard eyes and hollow cheeks,<br>War-stained uniforms and ragged that have not been off for weeks;<br>They salute him and they cheer him and they watch his face for signs;<br>Ah! they try to read old Greybeard while he’s riding round the lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There’s a crack, crack, crack and rattle; there’s a thud and there’s a crash;<br>In the battery over yonder there is something gone to smash,<br>Then a hush and sudden movement, and its meaning he divines,<br>And he patches up a blunder while he’s riding round his lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pushing this position forward, bringing that position back,<br>While his officers, with orders, ride like hell down hell’s own track;<br>Making hay—and to what purpose?—while his sun of winter shines,<br>But his work is just beginning when he’s ridden round his lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are fifty thousand rifles and a hundred batteries<br>All a-playing battle music, with his fingers on the keys,<br>And if for an hour, exhausted, on his camp bed he reclines,<br>In his mind he still is riding—he is riding round his lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He’s the brains of fifty thousand, blundering at their country’s call;<br>He’s the one hope of his nation, and the loneliest man of all;<br>He is flesh and blood and human, though he never shews the signs:<br>He is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is fixing up his lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is thankless work and weary, and, for all his neighbour knows,<br>He may sometimes feel as if he doesn’t half care how it goes;<br>But for all that can be gathered from his eyes of steely blue<br>He might be a great contractor who has some big job to do. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There’s the son who died in action—it may be a week ago;<br>There’s the wife and other troubles that most men have got to know—<br>(And we’ll say the grey-haired mother underneath the porch of vines):<br>Does he ever think of these things while he’s riding round his lines? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He is bossed by bitter boobies who can never understand;<br>He is hampered by the asses and the robbers of the land,<br>And I feel inclined to wonder what his own opinions are<br>Of the Government, the country, of the war and of the Czar. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He’s the same when he’s advancing, he’s the same in grim retreat;<br>For he wears one mask in triumph and the same mask in defeat;<br>Of the brave he is the bravest, he is strongest of the strong:<br>General Greybeard Shrapnel never shows that anything is wrong. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But we each and all are lonely, and we have our work to do;<br>We must fight for wife and children or our country and our screw<br>In the everlasting struggle to the end that fate destines;<br>In the war that men call living we are riding round our lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I ride round my last defences, where the bitter jibes are flung,<br>I am patching up the blunders that I made when I was young,<br>And I may be digging pitfalls and I may be laying mines;<br>For I sometimes feel like Shrapnel while I’m riding round my lines.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408723" data-title="Riding Round the Lines de Henry Lawson" data-description="Dust and smoke against the sunrise out where grim disaster lurks
And a broken sky-line looming like unfinished railway works,
And a trot, trot, trot and canter down inside the belt of mines:
It is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is riding round his..."></div>
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