Chants for the Boer

by Joaquin Miller

TO YE FIGHTING LORDS OF LONDON TOWN.

CHRISTMAS MORNING, 1899.

“The equipment of the Maine hospital ship by our American cousins warrants us in saying at least that they wish us well.”

We wish you well in all that’s well,

Would bind your wounds, would clothe, would feed—

Lay flowers where your brave men fell

In desert lands, exalt each deed

Of sacrifice; would beg to lay

White lilies by the gray hearthstone

Where, bowed in black this Christmas day,

She wails her brave dead far away

And weeps, so more than all alone:

Weeps while the chime, the chilly chime,

Drops on her heart, drops all the time

As one might drop a stone.

But you, ye lords and gentlemen

High throned, safe housed at home, fat fed,

When ye say we approve ye, when

Ye say this blood so bravely shed

Is shed with our consent, take care,

Lest Truth may take ye unaware;

Lest Truth be heard despite these chimes.

This hearthstone, brother’s blood that cries

To God is Freedom’s blood. Take care

Lest all sweet earth these piteous times

Not only hate ye for your crimes,

But scorn ye for your lies!

We would forgive could we forget:

We could forget all wrongs we knew

Had ye stayed hand some little yet—

Left to their own that farmer few

So like ourselves that fateful hour

Ye forced our farmers from the plow

To grapple with your tenfold power.

They guessed your greed, we know it now;

And now we ward ye from this hour!

Now, well awake no more we sleep,

But keep and keep and ever keep

To Freedom’s high watchtower.

Not all because our Washington

In battle’s carnage, years and years,

And this same Boer braved ye as one—

Blent blood with blood and tears with tears:

Not all because of kindred blood,

Not all because they built a town

And left such names of true renown.[A]

Not all because of Luther, Huss:

But most because of Brotherhood

In Freedom’s Hall; the holy right

To fight for Home, as freemen fight—

Who Freedom stabs, stabs Us!

This Nation’s heart, say what men may

Who butcher Peace and barter Truth,

Beats true as on its natal day,

Beats true as in its battle-youth,

Beats true to Freedom, true to Truth,

Whatever Tories dare to say.

Of all who fought with Washington

One Arnold was and only one.

Christ chose but twelve, yet one poor soul

Sold God for silver. Ever thus

Some taint, and even so with Us:

But Freedom thrills the whole.

My Lords, ye lead, through Him who died,

Your dauntless millions. Ye are wise

And learned. Ye are, beside,

As God’s anointed in their eyes,

Ye sit so far above their reach.

Such trust! But are ye truly true

To what He taught, to what ye preach,

To those who trust and look to you?

Then why mocked ye that manly Russ,

That august man, that manliest man

That yet has been since time began?

Ye mocked, as ye mock Us!

My Lords, slow paced and somber clad

Ye all will fare to church to-day

And there sit solemn faced and sad

With eyes to book, as if to pray.

And will ye think of Him who came

And lived so poor and died so lorn—

Came in the name of Peace, the name

Of God, that fair first Christmas morn?

My Lords, ye needs must think to-day—

Your eyes bent to the Holy Book

The while the people look and look—

For dare ye try to pray?

And while ye think of Christ the child

Think of the childless mother, she

Whose dead boy has his desert wild,

While yours his Christmas tree;

Think of the mother, far away,

Who sits and weeps with hollow eyes,

Her hungry child that cries and cries

Forlorn and fatherless to-day:

Think of the thousand homes that weep

All desolate, who but for ye

To-day had decked their Christmas tree;

Then fare ye home and—sleep?

[A] Note.—“I thank God there is not a drop of Saxon blood in my veins. I am a Dutchman; Boer, if you please.”—Rough-rider Roosevelt, Governor of New York and heir apparent to the Presidency of Us.