’Blessed be the English and all that they profess. 
     Cursed be the Savages that prance in nakedness!’
     ‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ’but where I used to lie
     Was neither shirt nor pantaloons to catch my brethren by: 

     ’But a well-wheel slowly creaking, going round, going round,
     By a water-channel leaking over drowned, warm ground—­
     Parrots very busy in the trellised pepper-vine—­
     And a high sun over Asia shouting:  “Rise and shine!"’

’Blessed be the English and everything they own. 
Cursed be the Infidels that bow to wood and stone!’
‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ’but where I used to lie
Was neither pew nor Gospelleer to save my brethren by: 

’But a desert stretched and stricken, left and right, left
and right,
Where the piled mirages thicken under white-hot light—­
A skull beneath a sand-hill and a viper coiled inside—­
And a red wind out of Libya roaring:  “Run and hide!"’

’Blessed be the English and all they make or do. 
Cursed be the Hereticks who doubt that this is true!’
‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ’but where I mean to die
Is neither rule nor calliper to judge the matter by: 

’But Himalaya heavenward-heading, sheer and vast, sheer and vast,
In a million summits bedding on the last world’s past;
A certain sacred mountain where the scented cedars climb,
And—­the feet of my Beloved hurrying back through Time!’

REGULUS

(1917)

Regulus, a Roman general, defeated the Carthaginians 256 B.C., but was next year defeated and taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, who sent him to Rome with an embassy to ask for peace or an exchange of prisoners.  Regulus strongly advised the Roman Senate to make no terms with the enemy.  He then returned to Carthage and was put to death.

The Fifth Form had been dragged several times in its collective life, from one end of the school Horace to the other.  Those were the years when Army examiners gave thousands of marks for Latin, and it was Mr. King’s hated business to defeat them.

Hear him, then, on a raw November morning at second lesson.

‘Aha!’ he began, rubbing his hands. ’Cras ingens iterabimus aequor. Our portion to-day is the Fifth Ode of the Third Book, I believe—­concerning one Regulus, a gentleman.  And how often have we been through it?’

‘Twice, sir,’ said Malpass, head of the Form.

Mr. King shuddered.  ‘Yes, twice, quite literally,’ he said.  ’To-day, with an eye to your Army viva-voce examinations—­ugh!—­I shall exact somewhat freer and more florid renditions.  With feeling and comprehension if that be possible.  I except’—­here his eye swept the back benches—­’our friend and companion Beetle, from whom, now as always, I demand an absolutely literal translation.’  The form laughed subserviently.