The Centurion's Song - Words by Rudyard Kipling, arrangement by Leslie Fish

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, 3
from Vectis to the Wall,
I have no 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 and only son,
Here where time, custom, grief, and toil,
age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil,
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's snows unshed
or pearled with August haze,
The clanging arch of steel-grey March,
or June's long-lighted days.

You'll take the old Aurelian road
through shore-decending pines,
Where blue as any peacock's neck,
the Tyrrhene Ocean shines,
You go where laurel crowns are won but,
will you e'er forget,
The scent of hawthorne 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!