VERSES TO A LORD WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SAID THAT THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH AFRICAN ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS
You thought because we held, my lord,
An ancient cause and strong,
That therefore we maligned the sword:
My lord, you did us wrong.
We also know the sacred height
Up on Tugela side,
Where those three hundred fought with Beit
And fair young Wernher died.
The daybreak on the failing force,
The final sabres drawn:
Tall Goltman, silent on his horse,
Superb against the dawn.
The little mound where Eckstein stood
And gallant Albu fell,
And Oppenheim, half blind with blood
Went fording through the rising flood—
My Lord, we know them well.
The little empty homes forlorn,
The ruined synagogues that mourn,
In Frankfort and Berlin;
We knew them when the peace was torn—
We of a nobler lineage born—
And now by all the gods of scorn
We mean to rub them in.
THE REBEL
There is a wall of which the stones
Are lies and bribes and dead men’s bones.
And wrongfully this evil wall
Denies what all men made for all,
And shamelessly this wall surrounds
Our homesteads and our native grounds.
But I will gather and I will ride,
And I will summon a countryside,
And many a man shall hear my halloa
Who never had thought the horn to follow;
And many a man shall ride with me
Who never had thought on earth to see
High Justice in her armoury.
When we find them where they stand,
A mile of men on either hand,
I mean to charge from right away
And force the flanks of their array,
And press them inward from the plains,
And drive them clamouring down the lanes,
And gallop and harry and have them down,
And carry the gates and hold the town.
Then shall I rest me from my ride
With my great anger satisfied.