Giffen's Debt
Imprimis he was “broke.” Thereafter left His Regiment and, later, took to drink; Then, having lost the balance of his friends, “Went Fantee” joined the people of the land, Turned three parts Mussulman and
The Answer
A Rose, in tatters on the garden path, Cried out to God and murmured ‘gainst His Wrath, Because a sudden wind at twilight’s hush Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush. And
Chapter Headings
Plane Tales From the Hills Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these You bid me please? The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I
Rimmon
1903 After Boer War Duly with knees that feign to quake Bent head and shaded brow, Yet once again, for my father’s sake, In Rimmon’s House I bow. The curtains part, the trumpet blares,
The Lesson
Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should, We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good. Not on a single issue, or in one
The Benefactors
Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme When Nature in
The Burial
1904(C. F. Rhodes, buried in the Matoppos, April 10, 1902) When that great Kings return to clay, Or Emperors in their pride, Grief of a day shall fill a day, Because its creature died.
Lichtenberg
Smells are surer than sounds or sights To make your heart-strings crack They start those awful voices o’ nights That whisper, ” Old man, come back! “ That must be why the big things
Puck's Song
See you the ferny ride that steals Into the oak-woods far? O that was whence they hewed the keels That rolled to Trafalgar. And mark you where the ivy clings To Bayham’s mouldering walls?
A Death-Bed
1918 This is the State above the Law. The State exists for the State alone.” [This is a gland at the back of the jaw, And an answering lump by the collar-bone.], Some die
The Prodigal Son
Here come I to my own again, Fed, forgiven and known again, Claimed by bone of my bone again And cheered by flesh of my flesh. The fatted calf is dressed for me, But
The Queen's Men
Valour and Innocence Have latterly gone hence To certain death by certain shame attended. Envy ah! even to tears! The fortune of their years Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. Scarce had
The Overland Mail
(Foot-Service to the Hills) In the name of the Empress of India, make way, O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam. The woods are astir at the close of the day We exiles
The Palace
When I was a King and a Mason a Master proven and skilled I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build. I decreed and dug down to my levels.
The Hyaenas
After the burial-parties leave And the baffled kites have fled; The wise hyaenas come out at eve To take account of our dead. How he died and why he died Troubles them not a