Dead of a fashion out of date,
Such folly has passed away
Like the hoop and patch and modish gait
That went out with an older day.
The stone is battered and all awry,
The words can be scarcely read,
The rank reeds clustering thick and high
Over your buried head.
I pluck one straight as a Paynim's lance
To keep your memory green,
For the lordly sake of old Romance
And your own, sad seventeen.
John Sandes.
`With Death's Prophetic Ear'
Lay my rifle here beside me, set my Bible on my breast,
For a moment let the warning bugles cease;
As the century is closing I am going to my rest,
Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant go in peace.
But loud through all the bugles rings a cadence in mine ear,
And on the winds my hopes of peace are strowed.
Those winds that waft the voices that already I can hear
Of the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.
Yes, the red-coats are returning, I can hear the steady tramp,
After twenty years of waiting, lulled to sleep,
Since rank and file at Potchefstroom we hemmed them in their camp,
And cut them up at Bronkerspruit like sheep.
Pages:
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128