Who carries the gun? 
   A lad from London town. 
Then let him go, for well we know
   The stuff that never backs down. 
He has learned to joke at the powder smoke,
   For he is the fog-smoke’s son,
And his heart is light and his pluck is right —
   The man who carries the gun.

Who carries the gun? 
   A lad from the Emerald Isle. 
Then let him go, for well we know,
   We’ve tried him many a while. 
We’ve tried him east, we’ve tried him west,
   We’ve tried him sea and land,
But the man to beat old Erin’s best
   Has never yet been planned.

Who carries the gun? 
   It’s you, and you, and you;
So let us go, and we won’t say no
   If they give us a job to do. 
Here we stand with a cross-linked hand,
   Comrades every one;
So one last cup, and drink it up
   To the man who carries the gun! 
      For the Colonel rides before,
         The Major’s on the flank,
      The Captains and the Adjutant
         Are in the foremost rank. 
      And when it’s ‘Action front!’
         And there’s fighting to be done,
      Come one, come all, you stand or fall
         By the man who holds the gun.

A LAY OF THE LINKS

It’s up and away from our work to-day,
   For the breeze sweeps over the down;
And it’s hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame,
   And the bracken is bronzing to brown. 
With the turf ’neath our tread and the blue overhead,
   And the song of the lark in the whin;
There’s the flag and the green, with the bunkers between —
   Now will you be over or in?

The doctor may come, and we’ll teach him to know
   A tee where no tannin can lurk;
The soldier may come, and we’ll promise to show
   Some hazards a soldier may shirk;
The statesman may joke, as he tops every stroke,
   That at last he is high in his aims;
And the clubman will stand with a club in his hand
   That is worth every club in St. James’.

The palm and the leather come rarely together,
   Gripping the driver’s haft,
And it’s good to feel the jar of the steel
   And the spring of the hickory shaft. 
Why trouble or seek for the praise of a clique? 
   A cleek here is common to all;
And the lie that might sting is a very small thing
   When compared with the lie of the ball.

Come youth and come age, from the study or stage,
   From Bar or from Bench—­high and low! 
A green you must use as a cure for the blues —
   You drive them away as you go. 
We’re outward bound on a long, long round,
   And it’s time to be up and away: 
If worry and sorrow come back with the morrow,
   At least we’ll be happy to-day.

THE DYING WHIP

It came from gettin’ ’eated, that was ’ow the thing begun,
And ‘ackin’ back to kennels from a ninety-minute run;
‘I guess I’ve copped brownchitis,’ says I to brother Jack,
An’ then afore I knowed it I was down upon my back.