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.

We hear the Hottentot herders

As the sheep click past to the foldAnd 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.

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!

SOUTH AFRICA

LIVED

1903

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!

THE BURIAL

1902

(C. J. Rhodes, buried in the Matoppos, April 10, 1902)

WHEN that great Kings return to clay,

Or Emperors in their pride,

Grief of a day shall fill a day,

Because its creature died.

But we

we reckon not with those

Whom the mere Fates ordain,

This Power that wrought on us and goes
Back to the Power again.

Dreamer devout, by vision led

Beyond our guess or reach,
The travail of his spirit bred
Cities in place of speech.

So huge the all-mastering thought that drove -
So brief the term allowed

Nations, not words, he linked to prove

His faith before the crowd.

It is his will that he look forth
Across the world he won

The granite of the ancient North-
Great spaces washed with sun.
There shall he patient take his seat
(As when the Death he dared),

And there await a people's feet

In the paths that he prepared.

There, till the vision he foresaw
Splendid and whole arise,
And unimagined Empires draw
To council 'neath his skies,