THE SOLDIER

Then on a horse which bit and bucked

( The half-broke four-year-old Marauder )

Came Minton-Price of th’ Afghan border,

Lean, puckered, yellowed, knotted, scarred,

Tough as a hide-rope twisted hard,

Tense tiger-sinew knit to bone.

Strange-wayed from having lived alone

With Kafir, Afghan and Beloosh

In stations frozen in the Koosh

Where nothing but the bullet sings.

His mind had conquered many things,

Painting, mechanics, physics, law,

White-hot, hand-beaten things to draw

Self-hammered from his own soul's stithy,

His speech was blacksmith-sparked and pithy.

Danger had been his brother bred;

The stones had often been his bed

In bickers with the border-thieves.