What marks the frontier line?
Thou man of Burmah, speak!
Is it traced from Mandalay,
And down the marches of Cathay,
From Bhamo south to Kiang-mai,
And where the buried rubies lie?
‘Not that! Not that!’
Then tell me what I seek:
What marks the frontier line?
What marks the frontier line?
Thou Africander, say!
Is it shown by Zulu kraal,
By Drakensberg or winding Vaal,
Or where the Shiré waters seek
Their outlet east at Mozambique?
‘Not that! Not that!
There is a surer way
To mark the frontier line.’
What marks the frontier line?
Thou man of Egypt, tell!
Is it traced on Luxor’s sand,
Where Karnak’s painted pillars stand,
Or where the river runs between
The Ethiop and Bishareen?
‘Not that! Not that!
By neither stream nor well
We mark the frontier line.
‘But be it east or west,
One common sign we bear,
The tongue may change, the soil, the sky,
But where your British brothers lie,
The lonely cairn, the nameless grave,
Still fringe the flowing Saxon wave.
’Tis that! ’Tis where
They lie—the men who placed it there,
That marks the frontier line.’
CORPORAL DICK’S PROMOTION
A BALLAD OF ’82
The Eastern day was well-nigh o’er
When, parched with thirst and travel sore,
Two of McPherson’s flanking corps
Across the Desert were tramping.
They had wandered off from the beaten track
And now were wearily harking back,
Ever staring round for the signal jack
That marked their comrades camping.
The one was Corporal Robert Dick,
Bearded and burly, short and thick,
Rough of speech and in temper quick,
A hard-faced old rapscallion.
The other, fresh from the barrack square,
Was a raw recruit, smooth-cheeked and fair
Half grown, half drilled, with the weedy air
Of a draft from the home battalion.
Weary and parched and hunger-torn,
They had wandered on from early morn,
And the young boy-soldier limped forlorn,
Now stumbling and now falling.
Around the orange sand-curves lay,
Flecked with boulders, black or grey,
Death-silent, save that far away
A kite was shrilly calling.
A kite? Was that a kite? The yell
That shrilly rose and faintly fell?
No kite’s, and yet the kite knows well
The long-drawn wild halloo.
And right athwart the evening sky
The yellow sand-spray spurtled high,
And shrill and shriller swelled the cry
Of ‘Allah! Allahu!’
The Corporal peered at the crimson West,
Hid his pipe in his khaki vest.
Growled out an oath and onward pressed,
Still glancing over his shoulder.
‘Bedouins, mate!’ he curtly said;
‘We’ll find some work for steel and lead,
And maybe sleep in a sandy bed,
Before we’re one hour older.