The Rise and Fall of Meter

128 chapter 4

Oh! If I’d a fife to wheedle, come boys come!

You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,

Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!

“Hey, but here’s a toy shop, here’s a drum for me,

Penny whistles too to play the tune! 10

Half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see

We’re a band!” Said the weary big Dragoon.

“Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,

Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!

You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,

Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!” 15

Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night,

Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat;

Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight

With a little penny drum to lift their feet.

Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake, and take the road again, 20

Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!

You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,

Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!

As long as there’s an Englishman to ask a tale of me,

As long as I can tell the tale aright, 25

We’ll not forget the penny whistle’s wheedle-deedle-dee

And the big Dragoon a-beating down the night,

Rubadub, Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,

Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!

You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, 30

Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife, and drum!^59

Here, Newbolt demonstrates what seems to be a near desperate belief in the
power of this martial, English rhythm, and in his own power as someone able
to employ that rhythm, to bring people together and inspire self-sacrifice and
love of country. As in his early poem, “Admirals All,” Newbolt joins the mili-
tary general to the poet, both with the power to move their audience toward
action. But the difference between the prose text and the poem is significant:
in the prose version, as “the beat of it got into the dead man’s pulses,” the men
were roused, revived and saved from death—or, rather, from court martial—
by the sound of the “beat.” In the poem, the “Englishmen” are boys: “Rubadub,
Rubadub” and “Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee” making a school game out of
battle and almost bragging that the “half a thousand dead men  / soon shall
hear and see / that we’re a band.” Although clearly attempting to be onomato-