POEM OF THE DAY: "THE ROMAN CENTURION'S SONG" - RUDYARD KIPLING.

Legate, I had the news last night - my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!



I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.



Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid - my wife - my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?



For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze -
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?



You'll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate's triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!



You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You'll go where laurel crowns are won, but -will you e'er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?



Let me work here for Britain's sake - at any task you will -
A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops to drill.
Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite Border keep,
Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old messmates sleep.



Legate, I come to you in tears - My cohort ordered home!
I've served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?
Here is my heart, my soul, my mind - the only life I know.
I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

There's so much that this poem conveys: the anguish experienced by an exemplary soldier who for the first time in his life feels that he cannot obey orders; the homage paid by Kipling to that other, earlier Empire - in shaping that which came later; the challenges life throws at us, poor mortals, for we soon learn that our Centurion had to bid farewell to his wife and son yet had to move on; the striking images of natural beauty Kipling paints on the canvas of our subconscious, not only of Britain's breathtaking scenery, but also of sun-drenched Mediterranean...


...and through it all, underneath, but present nevertheless, the inescapable truth of a dying Roman Empire... as it is withdrawing its resources from far flung outposts and territories to bolster the defenses of the heartland, Rome... if only to stave off the inevitable defeat for yet a couple more years.



Not many pens other than Kipling's could have crafted such a powerful plea.



MFBB.