Took us from our mothers,
Flung us on a naked shore
10
(Twelve bleak houses by the shore!
Seven summers by the shore!)
’Mid two hundred brothers.
There we met with famous men
Set in office o’er us;
15
And they beat on us with rods –
Faithfully with many rods –
Daily beat us on with rods,
For the love they bore us!
Out of Egypt unto Troy –
20
Over Himalaya –
Far and sure our bands have gone –
Hy-Brasil or Babylon,
Islands of the Southern Run,
And Cities of Cathaia!
25
And we all praise famous men –
Ancients of the College;
For they taught us common sense –
Tried to teach us common sense –
Truth and God’s Own Common Sense,
30
Which is more than knowledge!
Each degree of Latitude
Strung about Creation
Seeth one or more of us
(Of one muster each of us),
35
Diligent in that he does,
Keen in his vocation.
This we learned from famous men,
Knowing not its uses,
When they showed, in daily work,
40
Man must finish off his work –
Right or wrong, his daily work –
And without excuses.
Servants of the Staff and chain,
Mine and fuse and grapnel –
45
Some, before the face of Kings,
Stand before the face of Kings;
Bearing gifts to divers Kings –
Gifts of case and shrapnel.
This we learned from famous men
50
Teaching in our borders,
Who declarèd it was best,
Safest, easiest, and best –
Expeditious, wise, and best –
To obey your orders.
55
Some beneath the further stars
Bear the greater burden:
Set to serve the lands they rule,
(Save he serve no man may rule),
Serve and love the lands they rule;
60
Seeking praise nor guerdon.
This we learned from famous men,
Knowing not we learned it.
Only, as the years went by –
Lonely, as the years went by –
65
Far from help as years went by,
Plainer we discerned it.
Wherefore praise we famous men
From whose bays we borrow –
They that put aside To-day –
70
All the joys of their To-day –
And with toil of their To-day
Bought for us To-morrow!
Bless and praise we famous men –
Men of little showing –
75
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,
Broad and deep continueth,
Great beyond their knowing!
The Absent-Minded Beggar
When you’ve shouted ‘Rule Britannia,’ when you’ve sung ‘God save the Queen,’
When you’ve finished killing Kruger with your mouth,
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine
For a gentleman in khaki ordered South?
5
He’s an absent-minded beggar, and his weaknesses are great –
But we and Paul must take him as we find him –
He is out on active service, wiping something off a slate –
And he’s left a lot of little things behind him!
Duke’s son – cook’s son – son of a hundred Kings –
10
(Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!)
Each of ’em doing his country’s work
(and who’s to look after their things?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,
and pay – pay – pay!
15
There are girls he married secret, asking no permission to,
For he knew he wouldn’t get it if he did.
There is gas and coals and vittles, and the house-rent falling due,
And it’s more than rather likely there’s a kid.
There are girls he walked with casual. They’ll be sorry now he’s gone,
20
For an absent-minded beggar they will find him,
But it ain’t the time for sermons with the winter coming on,
We must help the girl that Tommy’s left behind him!
Cook’s son – Duke’s son – son of a belted Earl –
Son of a Lambeth publican – it’s all the same to-day!
25
Each of ’em doing his country’s work
(and who’s to look after the girl?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,
and pay – pay – pay!
There are families by thousands, far too proud to beg or speak,
30
And they’ll put their sticks and bedding up the spout,
And they’ll live on half o’ nothing, paid ’em punctual once a week,
’Cause the man that earns the wage is ordered out.
He’s an absent-minded beggar, but he heard his country call,
And his Reg’ment didn’t need to send to find him!
35
He chucked his job and joined it – so the job before us all
Is to help the home that Tommy’s left behind him!
Duke’s job – cook’s job – gardener, baronet, groom,
Mews or palace or paper-shop, there’s someone gone away!
Each of ’em doing his country’s work
40
(and who’s to look after the room?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,
and pay – pay – pay!
Let us manage so as, later, we can look him in the face,
And tell him – what he’d very much prefer –
45
That, while he saved the Empire, his employer saved his place,
And his mates (that’s you and me) looked out for her.
He’s an absent-minded beggar and he may forget it all,
But we do not want his kiddies to remind him
That we sent ’em to the workhouse while their daddy hammered Paul,
50
So we’ll help the homes that Tommy left behind him!
Cook’s home – Duke’s home – home of a millionaire,
(Fifty-thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!)
Each of ’em doing his country’s work
(and what have you got to spare?)
55
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,
and pay – pay – pay!
The Two-Sided Man
Much I owe to the Lands that grew –
More to the Lives that fed –
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.
5
Much I reflect on the Good and the True
In the Faiths beneath the sun,
But most upon Allah Who gave me two
Sides to my head, not one.
Wesley’s following, Calvin’s flock,
10
White or yellow or bronze,
Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok,
Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze –
Here is a health, my brothers, to you,
However your prayers are said,
15
And praised be Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head!
I would go without shirt or shoe,
Friend, tobacco or bread,
> Sooner than lose for a minute the two
20
Separate sides of my head!
Bridge-Guard in the Karroo
‘… and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.’
District Orders: Lines of Communication – South African War
Sudden the desert changes,
The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
Stand up like the thrones of Kings –
5
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,
10
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.
15
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
20
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;
25
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
30
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,
35
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 –
40
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.
45
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the white car-windows shine –
No, not combatants – only
Details guarding the line.)
Quick, ere the gift escape us!
50
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
55
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,
60
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
(SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, 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,
5
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 Dalagoa Bay, and from Pietersburg to Sutherland,
10
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 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.
15
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)
20
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.
25
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.
30
We have had an Imperial lesson. It may make us an Empire yet!
The Islanders
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.
5
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 –
10
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;
Selected Poems Page 12