And I with the brave shall be sleeping At ease on my mattress of loam, When back from their taking and keeping The squadron is riding home. The wind with the plumes will be playing, The girls will stand watching them wave, And eyeing my comrades and saying Oh who would not sleep with the brave? They ask and there is not an answer; Says you, I will 'list for a lancer, Oh who would not sleep with the brave? VII. In valleys green and still Where lovers wander maying They hear from over hill A music playing. Behind the drum and fife, Past hawthornwood and hollow, Through earth and out of life The soldiers follow. The soldier's is the trade: In any wind or weather He steals the heart of maid And man together. The lover and his lass Beneath the hawthorn lying Have heard the soldiers pass, And both are sighing. And down the distance they With dying note and swelling Walk the resounding way To the still dwelling. VIII. Soldier from the wars returning, Spoiler of the taken town, Here is ease that asks not earning; Turn you in and sit you down. Peace is come and wars are over, Welcome you and welcome all, While the charger crops the clover And his bridle hangs in stall. Now no more of winters biting, Filth in trench from fall to spring, Summers full of sweat and fighting For the Kesar or the King. Rest you, charger, rust you, bridle; Kings and kesars, keep your pay; Soldier, sit you down and idle At the inn of night for aye. IX. The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away, The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers. Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May. There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot, One season ruined of our little store. May will be fine next year as like as not: Oh ay, but then we shall be twenty-four. We for a certainty are not the first Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed Whatever brute and blackguard made the world. It is in truth iniquity on high To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave, And mar the merriment as you and I Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave. Iniquity it is; but pass the can. My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore; Our only portion is the estate of man: We want the moon, but we shall get no more.