The Indian Army

Into the West they are marching! This is their longed-for day
When that which England gave them they may at last repay;
When for the faith she dealt them, peasants and priests and lords,
When for the love they bear her, they shall unsheathe their swords!

Men of the plains and hill-men, men born to warrior roles.
Tall men of matchless ardour, small men with mighty souls,
Rulers alike and subjects: splendid the roll-call rings:
Rajahs and Maharajahs, Kings and the sons of Kings,

Bikanir, Patiala, Ratlam and Kishangarh,
Jodhpur, who rides the leopard down, Sachin and Cooch-Behar,
From lands where skies are molten and suns strike down and parch.
Out of the East they're marching, into the West they march.

Oh little nimble Gurkhas, who've won a hundred fights.
Oh Sikhs — the Sikhs who failed not upon the Dargai heights,
Rajputs, against whose valour once in a younger world
Ruthless, unceasing, vainly, the Mogul's hosts were hurled,

Grey are our Western daybreaks and grey our Western skies
And very cold the night-watch unbroke by jackals' cries;
Hard too will be the waiting — you do not love to wait?
Aye, but the charge with bayonets — they'll sound it soon or late!

And when that charge is sounded, who'll heed grey skies and cold?
Not you, Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas, if to one thought you hold,
If as you cross the open, if as the foe you near,
If as you leap the trenches, this thought is very clear:

These foes, they are not sahibs: they break the word they plight,
On babes their blades are whetted, dead women know their might,
Their Princes are as sweepers whom none may touch or trust,
Their gods they have forgotten; their honour trails the dust;
All that they had of izzat is trodden under heel —
Into their hearts, my brothers, drive home, drive home the steel!

August, 1914.