To her who wreathes the Days, their laurel twines,
Or, decks no brow Fame’s love to tell,
Came wisest Clio, Story’s far-recording Muse,
A page in hand, whose bitter brief but glowing lines
Each trophied shaft, that rose, made prouder swell,
Blaze fresh its graphic lore with nobler hues.
To her,—this word on lip: “Build Sister now past shock of Days my latest shrine;
Based build it past their dim beseech,
Who up thro’ Time wan ghost-hands reach,
To slur with doubt his fair’st design:
Be yare! The Heavens lo, for tribute pine!”
And mark, they pact! ’Fore Chancel-bar the high vows plight:
Ordained the Altar, while uprose through flame,
Clear-set ’gainst unspent yet and brooding night
The sweet, wild star—the beacon flash of Cronje’s name.
CHRISTIAN DE WET.[2]
Fame long took wary note of him,
So did proud England, too, who, from his hand,
In the blood-red, flowery vintage of her land,
Has drained his pledges to their bitter brim,
Till, within the fiery cups, well-nigh an Empire swim,
Staggers for sure foot, wonders at that dizzy head,
What craze infatuate demons in yon soft spot bred,
Whence this vile feeling in each once firm limb?
What worked such odious rouse in one so free?
Made this man loathe her, so defy all fate,
That in his eye the price has fallen of all things but Hate,
Wide Earth, unregioned, where her realms not be?
Cries here not, summoning, out, like from some Fury’s song,
For ’ts dreadful due, some fierce, intolerable Wrong?
[2] For a final estimate of De Wet see pages [101-102].