A Consecration, John Masefield <br />Read by Liam Neely.<br /> <br />Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers<br />Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years,–<br />Rather the scorned — the rejected — the men hemmed in with the spears;<br /><br />The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies,<br />Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,<br />The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes.<br /><br />Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne,<br />Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown,<br />But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known.<br /><br />Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road,<br />The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad,<br />The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load.<br /><br />The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout,<br />The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout,<br />The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired lookout.<br /><br />Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth,<br />The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth;–<br />Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth!<br /><br />THEIRs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold;<br />Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.<br />Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold —<br />Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told.<br /><br />AMEN.
