The Spike: or, Victoria College Review Capping Carnival 1920

Opening Chorus

Opening Chorus

Plantagenet spearmen and bowmen are we,
Enjoying our bit of a smoke after tea;
For when we've marched twenty long miles in the day.
At night, you bet, Bacchus and baccy hold sway.
When night's on the forest, when red. camp fires shine
With embers of birch trees and odours of pine,
When limbs stretch out lazily, life's bounding free,
We all make as merry as merry can be.

Our battle formation would gladden your heart:
In the centre the birds with the halberds take part;
On the right our grim maces soon harrow the foe;
And to left every archer is tied in a bow.
Then while the fire's ruddy we tell o'er the fight,
With Memory coaxing us, far in the night;
So pile up the friendly logs, let the blaze free,
And all be as merry as merry can be.

At the first shaft of dawn we our bivouac break,
In the swirl of the river our energies wake;
A march, and an ambush, the armies pass by—
But unmarked, unremembered the fallen must lie.
So logs to the burning—the flames leaping high,
Drive Gloom to the forest, snatch Joy from the sky:
And if song and laughter the flames shall decree,
Why, we'll be as merry as merry can be.