In War 



reversal of selection stand for what it is 

 worth. Kipling tells us of the cost of 

 the rule of the sea : 



" We have fed our sea for a thousand years, 

 And she calls us, still unfed ; 

 Though there's never a wave of all her waves 

 But marks our English dead. 



" If blood be the price of admiralty, 

 Lord God, we have paid it in full." 



Again, referring to dominion on land, 

 he says : 



" Walk wide of the widow of Windsor, 

 For half of creation she owns. 

 We've bought her the same with the sword 

 and the flame, 

 And we've salted it down with our bones. 

 Poor beggars, it's blue with our bones." 



Finer than this are the lines in the 

 " Revelry of the Dying/' written by a 

 British officer, Bartholomew Dowling, 

 it is said, who died in the plague in 

 India : 



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