Chapter M: I. 64

PARTING OF THE COLUMNS, THE 77

PIET 104

RECESSIONAL 121

RETURN, THE 117

STELLENBOSH 98

TWO KOPJES 82

UBIQUE 113

‘WILFUL-MISSING’ 110

INDEX TO FIRST LINES

PAGE
At times when under cover I ’ave said, 86

Files, 17

God of our fathers, known of old, 121

‘Here is nothing new nor aught unproven’ say the Trumpets, 1

Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run, 53

I do not love my Empire’s foes, 104

I wish my mother could see me now, with a fence-post under my
arm, 64

Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should, 13

Lived a woman wonderful, 49

Me that ’ave been what I’ve been, 59

No doubt but ye are the People--your throne is above the King’s, 31

Not in the camp his victory lies, 23

Only two African kopjes, 82

Out o’ the wilderness, dusty an’ dry, 72

Peace is declared, an’ I return, 117

Smells are surer than sounds or sights, 95

Sudden the desert changes, 8

The bachelor ’e fights for one, 91

The General ’eard the firin’ on the flank, 98

There is a word you often see, pronounce it as you may, 113

There is a world outside the one you know, 110

The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay, 40

We’re foot--slog--slog--slog--sloggin’ over Africa! 88

We’ve rode and fought and ate and drunk as rations come to hand, 77

When by the labour of my ’ands, 102

Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order, 26

THE OLD ISSUE [Page 1]

OCTOBER 9, 1899

_’Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,’ say the Trumpets,
‘Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
‘It is the King--the King we schooled aforetime!’
(Trumpets in the marshes--in the eyot at Runnymede!)_

_’Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,’ peal the Trumpets,
‘Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
‘It is the King!’--inexorable Trumpets--
(Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)_

* * * * *

_’He hath veiled the crown and hid the sceptre,’ warn the Trumpets,
‘He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will.
‘Hard die the Kings--ah hard--dooms hard!’ declare the Trumpets,
Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill!_

_Ancient and Unteachable, abide--abide the trumpets!
Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings
Clamour over ocean of the harsh pursuing Trumpets--
Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings!_

All we have of freedom, all we use or know--
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.

Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw--
Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.

Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.

Till our fathers ’stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.

So they bought us freedom--not at little cost--
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost.

Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.

Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure,
Whining ‘He is weak and far’; crying ‘Time shall cure.’

(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.)

Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace.
Suffer not the old King here or overseas.

They that beg us barter--wait his yielding mood--
Pledge the years we hold in trust--pawn our brother’s blood--

Howso’ great their clamour, whatso’er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!

Here is naught unproven--here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.

He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms--arms we may not bear.

He shall break his Judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.

He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers ’neath our window, lest we mock the King--

Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.

Strangers of his council, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell--deny--delay.

We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to--for the Tongue we use.

We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.

Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.

Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled--
Laying on a new land evil of the old;

Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain--
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.

_Here is naught at venture, random nor untrue--
Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew._

_Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid:
Step for step and word for word--so the old Kings did!_

_Step by step and word by word: who is ruled may read.
Suffer not the old Kings--for we know the breed--_

_All the right they promise--all the wrong they bring.
Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King!_

BRIDGE-GUARD IN THE KARROO [Page 8]

‘and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.’

_District Orders--Lines of Communication._

Sudden the desert changes,
The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
Stand up like the thrones of kings--

Ramparts of slaughter and peril--
Blazing, amazing--aglow
’Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl
And the wine-dark flats below.

Royal the pageant closes,
Lit by the last of the sun--
Opal and ash-of-roses,
Cinnamon, umber, and dun.

The twilight swallows the thicket,
The starlight reveals the ridge;
The whistle shrills to the picket--
We are changing guard on the bridge.

(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the empty metals shine--
No, not combatants--only
Details guarding the line.)

We slip through the broken panel
Of fence by the ganger’s shed;
We drop to the waterless channel
And the lean track overhead;

We stumble on refuse of rations,
The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
And the endless night begins.

We hear the Hottentot herders
As the sheep click past to the fold--
And the click of the restless girders
As the steel contracts in the cold--

Voices of jackals calling
And, loud in the hush between,
A morsel of dry earth falling
From the flanks of the scarred ravine.

And the solemn firmament marches,
And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches--
Banded and barred by the ties,

Till we feel the far track humming,
And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming--
The wonderful north-bound train.

(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the white car-windows shine--
No, not combatants--only
Details guarding the line.)

Quick, ere the gift escape us!
Out of the darkness we reach
For a handful of week-old papers
And a mouthful of human speech.

And the monstrous heaven rejoices,
And the earth allows again,
Meetings, greetings, and voices
Of women talking with men.

So we return to our places,
As out on the bridge she rolls;
And the darkness covers our faces,
And the darkness re-enters our souls.

More than a little lonely
Where the lessening tail-lights shine.
No--not combatants--only
Details guarding the line!

THE LESSON [Page 13]

(1899–1902)

_Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should,
We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good._

Not on a single issue, or in one direction or twain,
But conclusively, comprehensively, and several times and again,
Were all our most holy illusions knocked higher than Gilderoy’s kite.
We have had a jolly good lesson, and it serves us jolly well right!

This was not bestowèd us under the trees, nor yet in the shade of a
tent,
But swingingly, over eleven degrees of a bare brown continent.
From Lamberts to Delagoa Bay, and from Pietersburg to Sutherland,
Fell the phenomenal lesson we learned--with a fulness accorded no
other land.

It was our fault, and our very great fault, and _not_ the judgment of
Heaven.
We made an Army in our own image, on an island nine by seven,
Which faithfully mirrored its makers’ ideals, equipment, and mental
attitude--
And so we got our lesson: and we ought to accept it with gratitude.

We have spent two hundred million pounds to prove the fact once more,
That horses are quicker than men afoot, since two and two make four:
And horses have four legs, and men have two legs, and two into four
goes twice,
And nothing over except our lesson--and very cheap at the price.

For remember (this our children shall know: we are too near for that
knowledge)
Not our mere astonied camps, but Council and Creed and College--
All the obese, unchallenged old things that stifle and overlie us--
Have felt the effects of the lesson we got--an advantage no money
could buy us!

Then let us develop this marvellous asset which we alone command,
And which, it may subsequently transpire, will be worth as much as
the Rand:
Let us approach this pivotal fact in a humble yet hopeful mood--
We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good!

It was our fault, and our very great fault--and now we must turn it
to use;
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse!
So the more we work and the less we talk the better results we shall
get--
We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!

THE FILES [Page 17]

(THE SUB-EDITOR SPEAKS)

Files--
The Files--
Office Files!
Oblige me by referring to the files.
Every question man can raise,
Every phrase of every phase
Of that question is on record in the files--
(Threshed out threadbare--fought and finished in the files).
Ere the Universe at large
Was our new-tipped arrows’ targe--
Ere we rediscovered Mammon and his wiles--
Faenza, gentle reader, spent her--five-and-twentieth leader
(You will find him, and some others, in the files).
Warn all future Robert Brownings and Carlyles,
It will interest them to hunt among the files,
Where unvisited, a-cold,
Lie the crowded years of old
In that Kensall-Green of greatness called the files--
(In our newspaPère-la-Chaise the office files),
Where the dead men lay them down
Meekly sure of long renown,
And above them, sere and swift,
Packs the daily deepening drift
Of the all-recording, all-effacing files--
The obliterating, automatic files.
Count the mighty men who slung
Ink, Evangel, Sword, or Tongue
When Reform and you were young--
Made their boasts and spake according in the files--
(Hear the ghosts that wake applauding in the files!)
Trace each all-forgot career
From long primer through brevier
Unto Death, a para minion in the files
(Para minion--solid--bottom of the files)....
Some successful Kings and Queens adorn the files,
They were great, their views were leaded,
And their deaths were triple-headed,
So they catch the eye in running through the files
(Show as blazes in the mazes of the files);
For their ‘paramours and priests,’
And their gross, jack-booted feasts,
And their epoch-marking actions see the files.
Was it Bomba fled the blue Sicilian isles?
Was it Saffi, a professor
Once of Oxford, brought redress or
Garibaldi? Who remembers
Forty-odd-year old Septembers?--
Only sextons paid to dig among the files
(Such as I am, born and bred among the files).
You must hack through much deposit
Ere you know for sure who was it
Came to burial with such honour in the files
(Only seven seasons back beneath the files).
‘Very great our loss and grievous--
‘So our best and brightest leave us,
‘And it ends the Age of Giants,’ say the files;
All the ’60--’70--’80--’90 files
(The open-minded, opportunist files--
The easy ‘O King, live for ever’ files).
It is good to read a little in the files;
’Tis a sure and sovereign balm
Unto philosophic calm,
Yea, and philosophic doubt when Life beguiles.
When you know Success is Greatness,
When you marvel at your lateness
In apprehending facts so plain to Smiles
(Self-helpful, wholly strenuous Samuel Smiles).
When your Imp of Blind Desire
Bids you set the Thames afire,
You’ll remember men have done so--in the files.
You’ll have seen those flames transpire--in the files
(More than once that flood has run so--in the files).
When the Conchimarian horns
Of the reboantic Norns
Usher gentlemen and ladies
With new lights on Heaven and Hades,
Guaranteeing to Eternity
All yesterday’s modernity;
When Brocken-spectres made by
Some one’s breath on ink parade by,
Very earnest and tremendous,
Let not shows of shows offend us.
When of everything we like we
Shout ecstatic:--’_Quod ubique,
Quod ab omnibus_ means _semper!_’
Oh, my brother, keep your temper!
Light your pipe and take a look along the files!
You’ve a better chance to guess
At the meaning of Success
(Which is Greatness--_vide_ press)
When you’ve seen it in perspective in the files.

THE REFORMERS [Page 23]

_Not in the camp his victory lies
Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation’s sacrifice
To turn the judgment from his race._

Happy is he who, bred and taught
By sleek, sufficing Circumstance--
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance--

Sees, on the threshold of his days,
The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to unheralded dismays
Submits his body and his soul;

The fatted shows wherein he stood
Foregoing, and the idiot pride,
That he may prove with his own blood
All that his easy sires denied--

Ultimate issues, primal springs,
Demands, abasements, penalties--
The imperishable plinth of things
Seen and unseen, that touch our peace.

For, though ensnaring ritual dim
His vision through the after-years,
Yet virtue shall go out of him:
Example profiting his peers.

With great things charged he shall not hold
Aloof till great occasion rise,
But serve, full-harnessed, as of old,
The days that are the destinies.

He shall forswear and put away
The idols of his sheltered house;
And to Necessity shall pay
Unflinching tribute of his vows.

He shall not plead another’s act,
Nor bind him in another’s oath
To weigh the Word above the Fact,
Or make or take excuse for sloth.

The yoke he bore shall press him still,
And long-ingrained effort goad
To find, to fashion, and fulfil
The cleaner life, the sterner code.

_Not in the camp his victory lies--
The world (unheeding his return)
Shall see it in his children’s eyes
And from his grandson’s lips shall learn!_

DIRGE OF DEAD SISTERS [Page 26]

Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order
(Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?)
And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter,
And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?

(Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by--
Let us now remember many honourable women,
Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.)

Who recalls the morning and the thunder through the foothills
(Tufts of fleecy shrapnel strung along the empty plains?)
And the sun-scarred Red-Cross coaches creeping guarded to the
culvert,
And the faces of the Sisters looking gravely from the trains?

(When the days were torment and the nights were clouded terror,
When the Powers of Darkness had dominion on our soul--
When we fled consuming through the Seven Hells of fever,
These put out their hands to us and healed and made us whole.)

Who recalls the midnight by the bridge’s wrecked abutment
(Autumn rain that rattled like a Maxim on the tin?)
And the lightning-dazzled levels and the streaming, straining
wagons,
And the faces of the Sisters as they bore the wounded in?

(Till the pain was merciful and stunned us into silence--
When each nerve cried out on God that made the misused clay;
When the Body triumphed and the last poor shame departed--
These abode our agonies and wiped the sweat away.)

Who recalls the noontide and the funerals through the market
(Blanket-hidden bodies, flagless, followed by the flies?)
And the footsore firing-party, and the dust and stench and
staleness,
And the faces of the Sisters and the glory in their eyes?

(Bold behind the battle, in the open camp all-hallowed,
Patient, wise, and mirthful in the ringed and reeking town,
These endured unresting till they rested from their labours--
Little wasted bodies, ah, so light to lower down!)

Yet their graves are scattered and their names are clean forgotten,
Earth shall not remember, but the Waiting Angel knows
Them that died at Uitvlugt when the plague was on the city--
Her that fell at Simon’s Town in service on our foes.

_Wherefore we they ransomed, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by,
Praise with love and worship many honourable women,
Those that gave their lives for us when we were like to die!_

THE ISLANDERS [Page 31]

_No doubt but ye are the People--your throne is above the King’s.
Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things:
Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear--
Bringing the word well smoothen--such as a King should hear._

Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden seas,
Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease;
Till ye said of Strife, ‘What is it?’ of the Sword, ‘It is far from
our ken’;
Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your armed
men.
Ye stopped your ears to the warning--ye would neither look nor heed--
Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts above their
need.
Because of your witless learning and your beasts of warren and chase,
Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields for their
camping-place.
Ye forced them glean in the highways the straw for the bricks they
brought;
Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught.
Ye hindered and hampered and crippled; ye thrust out of sight and
away
Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for
pay.
Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed,
At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field.
Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land’s long-suffering Star),
When your strong men cheered in their millions while your striplings
went to the war.
Sons of the sheltered city--unmade, unhandled, unmeet--
Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the
street.
And what did ye look they should compass? War-craft learned in a
breath,
Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death?
So! And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize?
How are the beasts more worthy than the souls your sacrifice?
But ye said, ‘Their valour shall show them’; but ye said, ‘The end is
close.’
And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes,
And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride,
Ere--ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and
ride!
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the
goals.
Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie,
Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by
Waiting some easy wonder: hoping some saving sign--
Idle--openly idle--in the lee of the forespent Line.
Idle--except for your boasting--and what is your boasting worth
If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth?
Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set,
Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget
It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep.
Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep.
Men, not children, servants, or kinsfolk called from afar,
But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war.
Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same;
Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game--
As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste,
But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste.
As it were almost cricket--as it were even your play,
Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day.
So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake
In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake.
So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap
Forthright, accoutred, accepting--alert from the wells of sleep.
So at the threat ye shall summon--so at the need ye shall send
Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end;
Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise,
Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.
But ye say, ‘It will mar our comfort.’ Ye say, ‘It will minish our
trade.’
Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid?
For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn?
(Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.)
Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds,
With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods?
Will the rabbit war with your foemen--the red deer horn them for hire?
Your kept cock-pheasant keep you?--he is master of many a shire.
Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt,
Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns
melt?
Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back
from your shore?
Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more?
Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both?
Pride by insolence chastened? Indolence purged by sloth?)
No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid?
Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods shall aid.
Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease;
Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes;
Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement gods--
_These_ shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the
rods?
From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent,
And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were
sent.
When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips,
When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your
lips;
When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke,
Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke.

_No doubt but ye are the People--absolute, strong, and wise;
Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes.
On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the saving lies!_

THE PEACE OF DIVES [Page 40]

The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
‘Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
‘And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
‘Can make no better of it
‘Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

‘Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
‘And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old.
‘It may be grace hath found thee
‘In the furnace where We bound thee,
‘And that thou shalt bring the peace My Son foretold.’

Then merrily rose Dives and leaped from out his fire,
And walked abroad with diligence to do the Lord’s desire;
And anon the battles ceased,
And the captives were released,
And Earth had rest from Goshen to Gadire.

The Word came down to Satan that raged and roared alone,
’Mid the shouting of the peoples by the cannon overthrown
(But the Prophets, Saints, and Seers
Set each other by the ears,
For each would claim the marvel as his own):

‘Rise up, rise up, thou Satan, upon the Earth to go,
‘And prove the peace of Dives if it be good or no:
‘For all that he hath planned
‘We deliver to thy hand,
‘As thy skill shall serve to break it or bring low.’

Then mightily rose Satan, and about the Earth he hied,
And breathed on Kings in idleness and Princes drunk with pride;
But for all the wrong he breathed
There was never sword unsheathed,
And the fires he lighted flickered out and died.

Then terribly rose Satan, and he darkened Earth afar,
Till he came on cunning Dives where the money-changers are;
And he saw men pledge their gear
For the gold that buys the spear,
And the helmet and the habergeon of war.

Yea to Dives came the Persian and the Syrian and the Mede--
And their hearts were nothing altered, nor their cunning nor their
greed--
And they pledged their flocks and farms
For the king-compelling arms,
And Dives lent according to their need.

Then Satan said to Dives:--’Return again with me,
‘Who hast broken His Commandment in the day He set thee free,
‘Who grindest for thy greed,
‘Man’s belly-pinch and need;
‘And the blood of Man to filthy usury!’

Then softly answered Dives where the money-changers sit:--
‘My refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit;
‘But behold all Earth is laid
‘In the peace which I have made,
‘And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!’

Then angrily turned Satan, and about the Seas he fled,
To shake the new-sown peoples with insult, doubt, and dread;
But for all the sleight he used
There was never squadron loosed,
And the brands he flung flew dying and fell dead.

Yet to Dives came Atlantis and the Captains of the West--
And their hates were nothing weakened nor their anger nor unrest--
And they pawned their utmost trade
For the dry, decreeing blade;
And Dives lent and took of them their best.

Then Satan said to Dives:--’Declare thou by The Name,
‘The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame.
‘It is known through all the Hells
‘How my peoples mocked my spells,
‘And my faithless Kings denied me ere I came.’

Then answered cunning Dives: ‘Do not gold and hate abide
‘At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside?
‘With gold and fear and hate
‘I have harnessed state to state,
‘And with hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.

‘For hate men seek a weapon, for fear they seek a shield--
‘Keener blades and broader targes than their frantic neighbours
wield--
‘For gold I arm their hands,
‘And for gold I buy their lands,
‘And for gold I sell their enemies the yield.

‘Their nearest foes may purchase, or their furthest friends may
lease,
‘One by one from Ancient Accad to the Islands of the Seas.
‘And their covenants they make
‘For the naked iron’s sake,
‘But I--I trap them armoured into peace.

‘The flocks that Egypt pledged me to Assyria I drave,
‘And Pharaoh hath the increase of the herds that Sargon gave.
‘Not for Ashdod overthrown
‘Will the Kings destroy their own,
‘Or their peoples wake the strife they feign to brave.

‘Is not Calno like Carchemish? For the steeds of their desire
‘They have sold me seven harvests that I sell to Crowning Tyre;
‘And the Tyrian sweeps the plains
‘With a thousand hired wains,
‘And the Cities keep the peace and--share the hire.

‘Hast thou seen the pride of Moab? For the swords about his path,
‘His bond is to Philistia, in half of all he hath.
‘And he dare not draw the sword
‘Till Gaza give the word,
‘And he show release from Askalon and Gath.

‘Wilt thou call again thy peoples, wilt thou craze anew thy Kings?
‘Lo! my lightnings pass before thee, and their whistling servant
brings,
‘Ere the drowsy street hath stirred--
‘Every masked and midnight word,
‘And the nations break their fast upon these things.

‘So I make a jest of Wonder, and a mock of Time and Space,
‘The roofless Seas an hostel, and the Earth a market-place,
‘Where the anxious traders know
‘Each is surety for his foe,
‘And none may thrive without his fellows’ grace.

‘Now this is all my subtlety and this is all my wit,
‘God give thee good enlightenment, My Master in the Pit.
‘But behold all Earth is laid
‘In the peace which I have made,
‘And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!’

SOUTH AFRICA [Page 49]

Lived a woman wonderful,
(May the Lord amend her!)
Neither simple, kind, nor true,
But her Pagan beauty drew
Christian gentlemen a few
Hotly to attend her.

_Christian gentlemen a few
From Berwick unto Dover;
For she was South Africa,
And she was South Africa,
She was our South Africa,
Africa all over!_

Half her land was dead with drouth,
Half was red with battle;
She was fenced with fire and sword,
Plague on pestilence outpoured,
Locusts on the greening sward
And murrain on the cattle!

_True, ah true, and overtrue;
That is why we love her!
For she is South Africa,
And she is South Africa,
She is our South Africa,
Africa all over!_

Bitter hard her lovers toiled,
Scandalous their payment,--
Food forgot on trains derailed;
Cattle-dung where fuel failed;
Water where the mules had staled;
And sackcloth for their raiment!

So she filled their mouths with dust
And their bones with fever;
Greeted them with cruel lies;
Treated them despiteful-wise;
Meted them calamities
Till they vowed to leave her.

They took ship and they took sail,
Raging, from her borders,--
In a little, none the less,
They forgat their sore duresse,
They forgave her waywardness
And returned for orders!

They esteemed her favour more
Than a Throne’s foundation.
For the glory of her face
Bade farewell to breed and race--
Yea, and made their burial-place
Altar of a Nation!

Wherefore, being bought by blood,
And by blood restorèd
To the arms that nearly lost,
She, because of all she cost,
Stands, a very woman, most
Perfect and adorèd!

_On your feet, and let them know
This is why we love her!
For she is South Africa,
She is our South Africa,
Is our own South Africa,
Africa all over!_

THE SETTLER [Page 53]

Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead.
Here, where the senseless bullet fell,
And the barren shrapnel burst,
I will plant a tree, I will dig a well,
Against the heat and the thirst.

Here, in a large and a sunlit land,
Where no wrong bites to the bone,
I will lay my hand in my neighbour’s hand,
And together we will atone
For the set folly and the red breach
And the black waste of it all,
Giving and taking counsel each
Over the cattle-kraal.

Here will we join against our foes--
The hailstroke and the storm,
And the red and rustling cloud that blows
The locust’s mile-deep swarm;
Frost and murrain and floods let loose
Shall launch us side by side
In the holy wars that have no truce
’Twixt seed and harvest tide.

Earth, where we rode to slay or be slain,
Our love shall redeem unto life;
We will gather and lead to her lips again
The waters of ancient strife,
From the far and the fiercely guarded streams
And the pools where we lay in wait,
Till the corn cover our evil dreams
And the young corn our hate.

And when we bring old fights to mind,
We will not remember the sin--
If there be blood on his head of my kind,
Or blood on my head of his kin--
For the ungrazed upland, the untilled lea
Cry, and the fields forlorn:
‘The dead must bury their dead, but ye--
Ye serve an host unborn.’

Bless then, our God, the new-yoked plough
And the good beasts that draw,
And the bread we eat in the sweat of our brow
According to Thy Law.
After us cometh a multitude--
Prosper the work of our hands,
That we may feed with our land’s food
The folk of all our lands!

Here, in the waves and the troughs of the plains,
Where the healing stillness lies,
And the vast, benignant sky restrains
And the long days make wise--
Bless to our use the rain and the sun
And the blind seed in its bed,
That we may repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead!

SERVICE SONGS [Page 58]

_’Tommy’ you was when it began,
But now that it is o’er
You shall be called The Service Man
’Enceforward, evermore._

_Batt’ry, brigade, flank, centre, van,
Defaulter, Army corps--
From first to last The Service Man
’Enceforward, evermore._

_From ’Alifax to ’Industan,
From York to Singapore--
’Orse, foot, an’ guns, The Service Man
’Enceforward, evermore!_

CHANT-PAGAN [Page 59]

ENGLISH IRREGULAR: ’99–02

Me that ’ave been what I’ve been,
Me that ’ave gone where I’ve gone,
Me that ’ave seen what I’ve seen--
’Ow can I ever take on
With awful old England again,
An’ ’ouses both sides of the street,
And ’edges two sides of the lane,
And the parson an’ ‘gentry’ between,
An’ touchin’ my ’at when we meet--
Me that ’ave been what I’ve been?

Me that ’ave watched ’arf a world
’Eave up all shiny with dew,
Kopje on kop to the sun,
An’ as soon as the mist let ’em through
Our ’elios winkin’ like fun--
Three sides of a ninety-mile square,
Over valleys as big as a shire--
_Are ye there? Are ye there? Are ye there?_
An’ then the blind drum of our fire ...
An’ I’m rollin’ ’is lawns for the Squire,
Me!

Me that ’ave rode through the dark
Forty mile often on end,
Along the Ma’ollisberg Range,
With only the stars for my mark
An’ only the night for my friend,
An’ things runnin’ off as you pass,
An’ things jumpin’ up in the grass,
An’ the silence, the shine an’ the size
Of the ’igh, inexpressible skies....
I am takin’ some letters almost
As much as a mile, to the post,
An’ ‘mind you come back with the change!’
Me!

Me that saw Barberton took
When we dropped through the clouds on their ’ead,
An’ they ’ove the guns over and fled--
Me that was through Di’mond ’Ill,
An’ Pieters an’ Springs an’ Belfast--
From Dundee to Vereeniging all!
Me that stuck out to the last
(An’ five bloomin’ bars on my chest)--
I am doin’ my Sunday-school best,
By the ’elp of the Squire an’ his wife
(Not to mention the ’ousemaid an’ cook),
To come in an’ ’ands up an’ be still,
An’ honestly work for my bread,
My livin’ in that state of life
To which it shall please God to call
Me!

Me that ’ave followed my trade
In the place where the lightnin’s are made,
’Twixt the Rains and the Sun and the Moon;
Me that lay down an’ got up
Three years an’ the sky for my roof--
That ’ave ridden my ’unger an’ thirst
Six thousand raw mile on the hoof,
With the Vaal and the Orange for cup,
An’ the Brandwater Basin for dish,--
Oh! it’s ’ard to be’ave as they wish,
(Too ’ard, an’ a little too soon),
I’ll ’ave to think over it first--
Me!

I will arise an’ get ’ence;--
I will trek South and make sure
If it’s only my fancy or not
That the sunshine of England is pale,
And the breezes of England are stale,
An’ there’s somethin’ gone small with the lot;
For _I_ know of a sun an’ a wind,
An’ some plains and a mountain be’ind,
An’ some graves by a barb-wire fence;
An’ a Dutchman I’ve fought ’oo might give
Me a job were I ever inclined,
To look in an’ offsaddle an’ live
Where there’s neither a road nor a tree--
But only my Maker an’ me,
And I think it will kill me or cure,
So I think I will go there an’ see.