Part 3

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 make 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, The immense and brooding Spirit still Shall quicken and control. Living he was the land, and dead, His soul shall be her soul!

GENERAL JOUBERT [Page 77]

(DIED MARCH 27, 1900)

With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife, He had no part whose hands were clear of gain; But subtle, strong, and stubborn, gave his life To a lost cause, and knew the gift was vain.

Later shall rise a people, sane and great, Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one; Telling old battles over without hate-- Not least his name shall pass from sire to son.

He may not meet the onsweep of our van In the doomed city when we close the score; Yet o’er his grave--his grave that holds a man-- Our deep-tongued guns shall answer his once more!

THE PALACE [Page 78]

When I was a King and a Mason--a Master proven and skilled-- I cleared me ground for a palace such as a King should build. I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt, I came on the wreck of a palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion--there was no wit in the plan-- Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran-- Masonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone: ‘_After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known._’

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew, I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew. Lime I milled of the marbles; burned it, slacked it, and spread; Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart, I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart. As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

* * * * *

When I was a King and a Mason--in the open noon of my pride, They sent me a Word from the Darkness--They whispered and called me aside. They said--‘The end is forbidden.’ They said--‘Thy use is fulfilled, ‘And thy palace shall stand as that other’s--the spoil of a King who shall build.’

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves, and my shears. All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years. Only I cut on the timber, only I carved on the stone: _After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known!_

SUSSEX [Page 81]

God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all; That as He watched Creation’s birth, So we, in godlike mood, May of our love create our earth And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content, As one some Surrey glade, Or one the palm-grove’s droned lament Before Levuka’s trade. Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground--in a fair ground-- Yea, Sussex by the sea!

No tender-hearted garden crowns, No bosomed woods adorn Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs, But gnarled and writhen thorn-- Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim, And through the gaps revealed Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim Blue goodness of the Weald.

Clean of officious fence or hedge, Half-wild and wholly tame, The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edge As when the Romans came. What sign of those that fought and died At shift of sword and sword? The barrow and the camp abide, The sunlight and the sward.

Here leaps ashore the full Sou’west All heavy-winged with brine, Here lies above the folded crest The Channel’s leaden line; And here the sea-fogs lap and cling, And here, each warning each, The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring Along the hidden beach.

We have no waters to delight Our broad and brookless vales-- Only the dewpond on the height Unfed, that never fails, Whereby no tattered herbage tells Which way the season flies-- Only our close-bit thyme that smells Like dawn in Paradise.

Here through the strong unhampered days The tinkling silence thrills; Or little, lost, Down churches praise The Lord who made the hills: But here the Old Gods guard their round, And, in her secret heart, The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found Dreams, as she dwells, apart.

Though all the rest were all my share, With equal soul I’d see Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair, Yet none more fair than she. Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed, And I will choose instead Such lands as lie ’twixt Rake and Rye, Black Down and Beachy Head.

I will go out against the sun Where the rolled scarp retires, And the Long Man of Wilmington Looks naked toward the shires; And east till doubling Rother crawls To find the fickle tide, By dry and sea-forgotten walls, Our ports of stranded pride.

I will go north about the shaws And the deep ghylls that breed Huge oaks and old, the which we hold No more than ‘Sussex weed’; Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s Begilded dolphin veers, And black beside wide-bankèd Ouse Lie down our Sussex steers.

So to the land our hearts we give Till the sure magic strike, And Memory, Use, and Love make live Us and our fields alike-- That deeper than our speech and thought, Beyond our reason’s sway, Clay of the pit whence we were wrought Yearns to its fellow-clay.

_God gives all men all earth to love, But since man’s heart is small, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Beloved over all. Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground--in a fair ground-- Yea, Sussex by the sea!_

SONG OF THE WISE CHILDREN [Page 87]

When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear!

Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The million molten spears of morn-- The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house where we were born.

Flying-fish about our bows, Flying sea-fires in our wake: This is the road to our Father’s House, Whither we go for our soul’s sake!

We have forfeited our birthright, We have forsaken all things meet; We have forgotten the look of light, We have forgotten the scent of heat.

They that walk with shaded brows, Year by year in a shining land, They be men of our Father’s House, They shall receive us and understand.

We shall go back by boltless doors, To the life unaltered our childhood knew-- To the naked feet on the cool, dark floors, And the high-ceiled rooms that the Trade blows through:

To the trumpet-flowers and the moon beyond, And the tree-toad’s chorus drowning all-- And the lisp of the split banana-frond That talked us to sleep when we were small.

The wayside magic, the threshold spells, Shall soon undo what the North has done-- Because of the sights and the sounds and the smells That ran with our youth in the eye of the sun!

And Earth accepting shall ask no vows, Nor the Sea our love nor our lover the Sky. When we return to our Father’s House Only the English shall wonder why!

BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA [Page 90]

‘_And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura._’

Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day, Be gentle when the ‘heathen’ pray To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, Apart, Whom Maya held beneath her heart, Ananda’s Lord the Bodhisat, The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees, Nor hears ye thank your Deities, Ye have not sinned with such as these, His children at Kamakura;

Yet spare us still the Western joke When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke The little sins of little folk That worship at Kamakura--

The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies That flit beneath the Master’s eyes-- He is beyond the Mysteries But loves them at Kamakura.

And whoso will, from Pride released, Contemning neither creed nor priest, May feel the soul of all the East About him at Kamakura.

Yea, every tale Ananda heard, Of birth as fish or beast or bird, While yet in lives the Master stirred, The warm wind brings Kamakura.

Till drowsy eyelids seem to see, A-flower ’neath her golden _htee_, The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly From Burmah to Kamakura;

And down the loaded air there comes The thunder of Thibetan drums, And droned--‘_Om mane padme oms_’-- A world’s width from Kamakura.

Yet Brahmans rule Benares still, Buddh-Gaya’s ruins pit the hill, And beef-fed zealots threaten ill To Buddha and Kamakura.

A tourist-show, a legend told, A rusting bulk of bronze and gold, So much, and scarce so much, ye hold The meaning of Kamakura?

But when the morning prayer is prayed, Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade, Is God in human image made No nearer than Kamakura?

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN [Page 94]

Take up the White Man’s burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man’s burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain, To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain.

Take up the White Man’s burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch Sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man’s burden-- No tawdry rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper-- The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man’s burden-- And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard-- The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- ‘Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?’

Take up the White Man’s burden-- Ye dare not stoop to less-- Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness; By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man’s burden-- Have done with childish days-- The lightly proffered laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!

PHARAOH AND THE SERGEANT [Page 98]

‘... Consider that the meritorious services of the Sergeant Instructors attached to the Egyptian Army have been inadequately acknowledged.... To the excellence of their work is mainly due the great improvement that has taken place in the soldiers of H.H. the Khedive.’

_Extract from letter._

Said England unto Pharaoh, ‘I must make a man of you, That will stand upon his feet and play the game; That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do,’ And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname. It was not a Duke nor Earl, nor yet a _Vis_count-- It was not a big brass General that came; But a man in khaki kit who could handle men a bit, With his bedding labelled Sergeant Whatisname.

Said England unto Pharaoh, ‘Though at present singing small, You shall hum a proper tune before it ends,’ And she introduced old Pharaoh to the Sergeant once for all, And left ’em in the desert making friends. It was not a Crystal Palace nor Cathedral; It was not a public-house of common fame; But a piece of red-hot sand, with a palm on either hand, And a little hut for Sergeant Whatisname.

Said England unto Pharaoh, ‘You’ve had miracles before, When Aaron struck your rivers into blood; But if you watch the Sergeant he can show you something more, He’s a charm for making riflemen from mud.’ It was neither Hindustani, French, nor Coptics; It was odds and ends and leavings of the same, Translated by a stick (which is really half the trick), And Pharaoh harked to Sergeant Whatisname.

(There were years that no one talked of; there were times of horrid doubt-- There was faith and hope and whacking and despair-- While the Sergeant gave the Cautions and he combed old Pharaoh out, And England didn’t seem to know nor care. That is England’s awful way o’ doing business-- She would serve her God or Gordon just the same-- For she thinks her Empire still is the Strand and Holborn Hill, And she didn’t think of Sergeant Whatisname.)

Said England to the Sergeant, ‘You can let my people go!’ (England used ’em cheap and nasty from the start), And they entered ’em in battle on a most astonished foe-- But the Sergeant he had hardened Pharaoh’s heart That was broke, along of all the plagues of Egypt, Three thousand years before the Sergeant came-- And he mended it again in a little more than ten, So Pharaoh fought like Sergeant Whatisname!

It was wicked bad campaigning (cheap and nasty from the first), There was heat and dust and coolie-work and sun, There were vipers, flies, and sandstorms, there was cholera and thirst, But Pharaoh done the best he ever done. Down the desert, down the railway, down the river, Like Israelites from bondage so he came, ’Tween the clouds o’ dust and fire to the land of his desire, And his Moses, it was Sergeant Whatisname!

We are eating dirt in handfuls for to save our daily bread, Which we have to buy from those that hate us most, And we must not raise the money where the Sergeant raised the dead, And it’s wrong and bad and dangerous to boast. But he did it on the cheap and on the quiet, And he’s not allowed to forward any claim-- Though he drilled a black man white, though he made a mummy fight, He will still continue Sergeant Whatisname-- Private, Corporal, Colour-Sergeant, and Instructor-- But the everlasting miracle’s the same!

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS [Page 104]

(CANADIAN PREFERENTIAL TARIFF, 1897)

A Nation spoke to a Nation, A Queen sent word to a Throne: ‘Daughter am I in my mother’s house, But mistress in my own. The gates are mine to open, As the gates are mine to close, And I set my house in order,’ Said our Lady of the Snows.

‘Neither with laughter nor weeping, Fear or the child’s amaze-- Soberly under the White Man’s law My white men go their ways. Not for the Gentiles’ clamour-- Insult or threat of blows-- Bow we the knee to Baal,’ Said our Lady of the Snows.

‘My speech is clean and single, I talk of common things-- Words of the wharf and the market-place And the ware the merchant brings: Favour to those I favour, But a stumbling-block to my foes. Many there be that hate us,’ Said our Lady of the Snows.

‘I called my chiefs to council In the din of a troubled year; For the sake of a sign ye would not see, And a word ye would not hear. This is our message and answer; This is the path we chose: For we be also a people,’ Said our Lady of the Snows.

‘Carry the word to my sisters-- To the Queens of the East and the South. I have proven faith in the Heritage By more than the word of the mouth. They that are wise may follow Ere the world’s war-trumpet blows, But I--I am first in the battle,’ Said our Lady of the Snows.

_A Nation spoke to a Nation, A Throne sent word to a Throne: ‘Daughter am I in my mother’s house, But mistress in my own. The gates are mine to open, As the gates are mine to close, And I abide by my mother’s house,’ Said our Lady of the Snows._

‘ET DONA FERENTES’ [Page 107]

In extended observation of the ways and works of man, From the Four-mile Radius roughly to the plains of Hindustan: I have drunk with mixed assemblies, seen the racial ruction rise, And the men of half creation damning half creation’s eyes.

I have watched them in their tantrums, all that pentecostal crew, French, Italian, Arab, Spaniard, Dutch and Greek, and Russ and Jew, Celt and savage, buff and ochre, cream and yellow, mauve and white, But it never really mattered till the English grew polite;

Till the men with polished toppers, till the men in long frock-coats, Till the men that do not duel, till the men who fight with votes, Till the breed that take their pleasures as Saint Laurence took his grid, Began to ‘beg your pardon’ and--the knowing croupier hid.

Then the bandsmen with their fiddles, and the girls that bring the beer, Felt the psychologic moment, left the lit casino clear; But the uninstructed alien, from the Teuton to the Gaul, Was entrapped, once more, my country, by that suave, deceptive drawl.

* * * * *

As it was in ancient Suez or ’neath wilder, milder skies, I ‘observe with apprehension’ when the racial ructions rise; And with keener apprehension, if I read the times aright, Hear the old casino order: ‘Watch your man, but be polite.

‘Keep your temper. Never answer (_that_ was why they spat and swore). Don’t hit first, but move together (there’s no hurry) to the door. Back to back, and facing outward while the linguist tells ’em how-- "_Nous sommes allong à notre batteau, nous ne voulong pas un row._"’

So the hard, pent rage ate inward, till some idiot went too far ... ‘Let ’em have it!’ and they had it, and the same was serious war. Fist, umbrella, cane, decanter, lamp and beer-mug, chair and boot-- Till behind the fleeing legions rose the long, hoarse yell for loot.

Then the oil-cloth with its numbers, as a banner fluttered free; Then the grand piano cantered, on three castors, down the quay; White, and breathing through their nostrils, silent, systematic, swift-- They removed, effaced, abolished all that man could heave or lift.

Oh, my country, bless the training that from cot to castle runs-- The pitfall of the stranger but the bulwark of thy sons-- Measured speech and ordered action, sluggish soul and unperturbed, Till we wake our Island-Devil--nowise cool for being curbed!

When the heir of all the ages ‘has the honour to remain,’ When he will not hear an insult, though men make it ne’er so plain, When his lips are schooled to meekness, when his back is bowed to blows-- Well the keen _aas-vogels_ know it--well the waiting jackal knows.

Build on the flanks of Etna where the sullen smoke-puffs float-- Or bathe in tropic waters where the lean fin dogs the boat-- Cock the gun that is not loaded, cook the frozen dynamite-- But oh, beware my country, when my country grows polite!

KITCHENER’S SCHOOL [Page 113]

_Being a translation of the song that was made by a Mohammedan schoolmaster of Bengal Infantry (some time on service at Suakim) when he heard that the Sirdar was taking money from the English to build a Madrissa for Hubshees--or a college for the Sudanese, 1898._

Oh Hubshee, carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast! This is the message of Kitchener who did not break you in jest. It was permitted to him to fulfil the long-appointed years; Reaching the end ordained of old over your dead Emirs.

He stamped only before your walls, and the Tomb ye knew was dust: He gathered up under his armpits all the swords of your trust: He set a guard on your granaries, securing the weak from the strong: He said:--‘Go work the waterwheels that were abolished so long.’

He said:--‘Go safely, being abased. I have accomplished my vow.’ That was the mercy of Kitchener. Cometh his madness now! He does not desire as ye desire, nor devise as ye devise: He is preparing a second host--an army to make you wise.

Not at the mouth of his clean-lipped guns shall ye learn his name again, But letter by letter, from Kaf to Kaf, at the mouth of his chosen men. He has gone back to his own city, not seeking presents or bribes, But openly asking the English for money to buy you Hakims and scribes.

Knowing that ye are forfeit by battle and have no right to live, He begs for money to bring you learning--and all the English give. It is their treasure--it is their pleasure--thus are their hearts inclined: For Allah created the English mad--the maddest of all mankind!

They do not consider the Meaning of Things; they consult not creed nor clan. Behold, they clap the slave on the back, and behold, he ariseth a man! They terribly carpet the earth with dead, and before their cannon cool, They walk unarmed by twos and threes to call the living to school.

How is this reason (which is their reason) to judge a scholar’s worth, By casting a ball at three straight sticks and defending the same with a fourth? But this they do (which is doubtless a spell) and other matters more strange, Until, by the operation of years, the hearts of their scholars change:

Till these make come and go great boats or engines upon the rail (But always the English watch near by to prop them when they fail); Till these make laws of their own choice and Judges of their own blood; And all the mad English obey the Judges and say that the Law is good.

Certainly they were mad from of old: but I think one new thing, That the magic whereby they work their magic--wherefrom their fortunes spring-- May be that they show all peoples their magic and ask no price in return. Wherefore, since ye are bond to that magic, O Hubshee, make haste and learn!

Certainly also is Kitchener mad. But one sure thing I know-- If he who broke you be minded to teach you, to his Madrissa go! Go, and carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast, For he who did not slay you in sport, he will not teach you in jest.

THE YOUNG QUEEN [Page 118]

(THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, INAUGURATED NEW YEAR’S DAY 1901)

Her hand was still on her sword-hilt, the spur was still on her heel, She had not cast her harness of grey war-dinted steel; High on her red-splashed charger, beautiful, bold, and browned, Bright-eyed out of the battle, the Young Queen rode to be crowned.