E. W. Hornung

Name: The Young Guard
Author: E. W. Hornung

The Young Guard

Summary

“The Young Guard”, is a work by E. W. Hornung. It explores elements such as Upstanding, masticate and wooden crosses.

Quotes from The Young Guard (E. W. Hornung)

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ The men who die for England don't need it
rubbing in;
An automatic stamper and a narrow strip of tin
Record their date and regiment, their number and
their name—
And the Squire who dies for England is treated
just the same.
So stand the still battalions: alert, austere, serene;
Each with his just allowance of brown earth shot
with green;
None better than his neighbour in pomp or
circumstance—
All beads upon the rosary that turned the fate of
France!
Who says their war is over? While others carry
on,
The little wooden crosses spell but the dead and
gone? ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ Like rockerless rocking-horses, as wooden of leg
as they,
And not much redder of nostril—not anything
like so grim
As the slinking ghoul of a lean live cat creeping
over the crater's rim!
And behind and beyond and about us were the
long black Dogs of War,
With pigmies pulling their tails for them, and
making the monsters roar
As they slithered back on their haunches, as they
put out their flaming tongues,
And spat a murderous message long leagues from
their iron lungs! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ I saw the wooden crosses that fret the fields of
France.
A thrush sings in an oak-tree, and from the old
square tower
A chime as sweet and mellow salutes the idle hour:
Stone crosses take no notice—but the little
wooden ones
Are thrilling every minute to the music of the guns!
Upstanding at attention they face the cannonade,
In apple-pie alinement like Guardsmen on parade:
But Tombstones are Civilians who loll or sprawl
or sway
At every crazy angle and stage of slow decay. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ The only thing to ease you is some fresh blood in
the firm.
"When the war was young, and we were young,
we felt the same as you:
A few short months of glory—and we didn't care
how few!
French, British and Dominions, it took us all the
same—
Who knows but what the Hun himself enjoyed
his dirty game!
"We tumbled out of tradesmen's carts, we fell off
office stools;
Fathers forsook their families, boys ran away from
schools;
Mothers untied their apron-strings, lovers un-
loosed their arms—
All Europe was a wedding and the bells were
war's alarms! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ When a live Bishop was one of the Pollies * —
Ages and ages and ages ago!
Things that were Decent and things that were
Rotten,
How I remember them year after year!
Some—it may be—that were better forgotten:
Some that—it may be—should still draw a
tear...
More, many more, that are good to remember:
Yarns that grow richer, the older they grow:
Deeds that would make a man's ultimate ember
Glow with the fervour of ages ago! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ To whom speech, prayer, and warfare are all
one—
Equally gaseous!
Playing a game's beyond him and his hordes;
Theirs but to play the snake or wolf or
vulture:
Better one sporting lesson learnt at Lord's
Than all their Kultur....
Sinks a torpedoed Phoebus from our sight;
Over the field of play see darkness stealing;
Only in this one game, against the light
There's no appealing. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ What are the men about?
Each one sticking a haunted
head
Into a spectral clout!
Funny, the dearth of gibe and
joke,
When each one looks like a pig
in a poke,
Not omitting the snout!
THERE'S your mask, Sir! No
time to lose! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ Our boy who never dreamt of War!
He gave us of his own dear glow,
Last summer, centuries ago.
Bronzed leaves still cling to every bough.
I don't waylay the postman now.
Doubtless upon his nightly beat
He still comes twinkling down our street.
I am not there with straining eye—
A whistling imp could tell you why.
THE OLD BOYS (1917)
WHO is the one with the empty sleeve?"
"Some sport who was in the swim."
"And the one with the ribbon who's home on
leave?"
"Good Lord! I remember him! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ Why, say! The biggest thing on earth, to any
cute onlooker,
Is Old Man Bull and Uncle Sam aboard the
same blamed hooker!
One crew, one port, one speed ahead, steel-true
twin-hearts within her:
One ding-dong English-singin' race—a race
without a winner! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ And now I meet him in the way,
And earth is Heaven, night is Day,
For oh! there shines before his lamp
An envelope without a stamp!
Address in pencil; overhead,
The Censor's triangle in red.
Indoors and up the stair I bound:
One from the boy, still safe, still sound! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ Has an Elder Brother to take his arm,
And show him the thing to do—
And the thing to resist with a doubled fist,
If he'd be nor knave nor fool—
And the Game to play if he'd tread the way
Of the School behind the school."
RUDDDY YOUNG GINGER (1915)
RUDDY young Ginger was somewhere in camp,
War broke it up in a day,
Packing cadets of the steadier stamp
Home with the smallest delay.
Ginger braves town in his O.T.C. rags—
Beards a Staff Marquis—the limb!
Saying, "Your son, Sir, is one of my fags,"
Gets a Commission through him. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ All fingers and thumbs—and very few chums.
(I wish he'd shake hands with me!) "
"Who is the one with the heavy stick,
Who seems to walk from the shoulder?"
"Why, many's the goal you have watched him
kick!"
"He's looking a lifetime older.
Who is the one that's so full of fun—
I never beheld a blither—
Yet his eyes are fixt as the furrow betwixt?"
"He cannot see out of either,"
"Who are the ones that we cannot see,
Though we feel them as near as near?
In Chapel one felt them bend the knee,
At the match one felt them cheer. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ It—comes! And a lad with a
heart of oak
Knows only that heart's de-
sire!
His masked lips whimper but one
dear name—
And so is he lost to inward shame
That he thrills at the word:
"Re-tire!" ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ To trip and bring one of them
back to book,
As though he'd been giving
chase!
HE got back gasping—
"They'd too much start!"
"I'd've shot 'em instead!"
said Wren.
"That was your job, Sir, if you'd
the 'eart—
But it wouldn't 've been you,
then.
I pray my Lord I may live to see
A firing-party in front o' them
three!"
(That's what he said to the
men.)
NOW, Joy and Wren, of
Company B,
Are a favourite firm of mine ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ Marlborough men are the fear of the foe.
All that I wish to remark is—thank Heaven
I was at Uppingham ages ago!
WOODEN CROSSES (1917)
GO LIVE the wide world over—but when you
come to die, .
A quiet English churchyard is the only place to
lie! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ To slaughter, quarter, grill or bile, an' masticate
the cuss."
"I hope your teeth," the Linesman said, "are
equal to your tongue—
But that's the sort of carrion that's better when
it's hung.
Yet—the big thing you're doing I should like to
make you see!"
"Our stunt," said that young Yankee, "is to set
the whole world free!" ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ There was only one letter that
made her cry.
It was from Sergeant Wren:
THERE never was such a fear-
less man,
Or one so beloved as he.
He was always up to some daring
plan,
Or some treat for his men and
me.
There wasn't his match when he
went away;
But since he got back, there has
not been a day
But what he has earned a
V. C
A CYNICAL story? ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

E. W. Hornung, The Young Guard

“ But in one grand mad moment burst
From glorious life to glorious Life....
These twenty years ago and more,
'Mid purple heather and brown crag,
Our whole school numbered scarce a score,
And three have fallen for the Flag.
* H. P. P.—F. M. J. W. A. C. St. Ninian's, Moffat, 1879- 1880; South Africa, 1899-1900. You two have finished on one side,
You who were friend and foe at play ”

E. W. Hornung

Summary

Quotes from The Young Guard (E. W. Hornung)

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