



Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness, Matthew Wheaton
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)









    REBEL VERSES


    NEW YORK AGENTS
    LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
    FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET


    REBEL VERSES
    BY
    BERNARD GILBERT


    OXFORD
    B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
    MCMXVIII


BY THE SAME AUTHOR


    VERSE: LINCOLNSHIRE LAYS;
           FARMING LAYS;
           GONE TO THE WAR;
           WAR WORKERS.

    DRAMA: ELDORADO;
           THEIR FATHER'S WILL;
           THE RUSKINGTON POACHER.

    FICTION: WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT?
             TATTERSHALL CASTLE;
             THE YELLOW FLAG.

    POLITICAL: FARMERS AND TARIFF REFORM: WHAT EVERY FARMER
                 WANTS: THE FARM LABOURER'S FIX.

    MISCELLANEOUS: LIVING LINCOLN; FORTUNES FOR FARMERS.


FROM _The New Witness_

    MR. BERNARD GILBERT is one of the discoveries of the War. For
    years, it seems, he has been writing poetry, but it is only
    recently that an inapprehensive country has awakened to the
    fact. Now he is taking his rightful place among our foremost
    singers. What William Barnes was to Dorset, what T. E. Brown was
    to the Manx people--this is Mr. Gilbert to the folk of his
    native county of Lincoln. He has interpreted their lives, their
    sorrows, their aspirations, with a surprising fidelity. Mr.
    Gilbert never loses his grip upon realities. One feels that he
    knows the men of whom he writes in their most intimate moods;
    knows, too, their defects, which he does not shrink from
    recording. There is little of the dreamy idealism of the South
    in the peasant people of Lincolnshire. The outwardly respectable
    chapel-goer who asks himself, in a moment of introspection

        But why not have a good time here?
        Why should the Devil have all the beer?

    is true to type. But he has, too, his softer moods. Fidelity in
    friendship, courage, resource and perseverance--these are
    typical of the men of the Fens.

  TO
  MORLEY ROBERTS


  _Acknowledgments to the Editors of the:_
      _English Review_
      _New Age_
      _Colour_
      _Westminster Gazette_
      _New Witness_
      _To-Day_
      _Clarion_
      _Australian Triad_
      _Bystander_
      _Musical Student_
      _and Nash's Magazine_
  _in whose columns these verses have appeared during 1917._




Contents


    THE REBEL
    SONG OF REVOLT
    THERE AINT NO GOD
    THE NIGHT IS DARK
    RETURN
    NIETZSCHE
    SACRAMENT
    FIGHTIN' TOMLINSON
    THE LABOURER'S HYMN
    OLIVER CROMWELL
    ANYWHERE BUT HERE
    A. G. WEBSTER
    EAST WIND
    PETER WRAY
    OH FOOLS
    ELFIN DANCER
    OH TO BE HOME
    GIVE SOLDIERS A VOTE
    ALONE
    FLESH OF OUR FLESH
    THIS TOWN IS HELL
    TIMBERLAND BELLS
    DAME PEACH
    FRIENDS
    CHARING CROSS
    LOVE NOT TOO MUCH
    MACHIAVELLI
    REMORSE
    THE MANDRAKE'S HORRID SCREAM
    ONE DAY
    NO WIFE
    TO AN OLD FRIEND
    IS IT FINISHED
    OH LINCOLN, CITY OF MY DREAMS
    THE FOOL




The Rebel


    I live in music, in poetry, and in the life reflective.
    I seek intellectual boldness in man, I worship mental swiftness in
        women.
    I have no love for lawyers, priests, schoolmasters, or any dogmatic
        men.
    I am with poor against rich, labour against employer, women against
       