From whence comes all this weariness of heart,
This anxious longing for a place of rest,
These greedy cravings for the silent tomb,
Where all in deep forgetfulness repose?
Surely man was not made to while away
His costly time in brooding over wrongs
And disappointments meeting him through life,
As if there were no rays of sunshine left
To gladden him along his way to Heaven.
His life is not an empty, idle dream,
But dread reality, composed of facts,
Whose fruits will follow with their just rewards.
He has an object which to live for here;
And if that object be to live for God,
And for the good of those who him surround,
He may consider his a life well spent.
Then let us follow firmly duty’s call
With willing hearts, forgetful of the past,—
Still trusting in the strength and love of God,
Still striving further onward for the crown,
Still rising higher heavenward to our goal,
Till we at last that longed for Home attain,
And rest upon the bosom of our God.
Rev. F. J. Ochse.
THE DEFENCE OF RORKE’S DRIFT.
JANUARY 22-23, 1879.
Come listen for a moment,
All ye, whose peaceful life
In even flow is ne’er disturbed
By scenes of blood and strife;
Who sit around your hearth fires,
Secure from war’s alarms;
This humble lay sets forth to-day
A British deed of arms.
Left on the wild, lone border,
A small but fearless band,
Guarding the watery entrance
To savage Zululand;
On the warm mid-day breezes,
Like thunder’s distant sound,
Came the long roll of cannon
Far o’er the hostile ground,
And we wondered that our column
So soon the foe had found.
Then came two flying horsemen
Riding with loosened rein,
And the powdery dust like a whirlwind rose
As they scoured across the plain;
A few more rapid hoof-strokes,
And we heard the news they bore—
“In yonder glen nigh half our men
Lie weltering in their gore!
“’Twas shortly after noontide,
The column was away;
Swept the dark hordes in myriads down
Like wolves upon their prey;
Vainly the deadly hailstorm
Boomed from the cannon loud—
Vainly we tried to stem the tide
Of the black surging crowd.
“Our men, too soon surrounded,
Were slaughtered as they stood,
Facing their slayers to the last,
Dying as soldiers should.
How we escaped we know not,
From that fierce whirlwind’s frown,
But on this post a conquering host
E’en now is marching down!”
As men who dream, we heard them,
And awestruck, stood aghast;
And through each heart there went a chill
Like the breath of an icy blast;
We thought of those who left us
In the glow of their martial pride,
Now with the dead in the slaughter red,
Stark on the wild hill-side.