: Chants for the Boer by Miller Joaquin - South African War 1899-1902 Poetry

@FreeBooksMon 08 Apr, 2024

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TO THE BOERS. TO YE FIGHTING LORDS OF LONDON TOWN. MOTHER EGYPT. ANGLO-SAXON ALLIANCE. INDIA AND THE BOERS. AT THE CALEND'S CLOSE. AS IT IS WRITTEN. TO OOM PAUL KRUGER. USLAND TO THE BOERS. THAT USSIAN OF USLAND. FIGHT A BOY OF YOUR SIZE.

Find here not one ill word for brave old England; my first, best friends were English. But for her policy, her politicians, her speculators, what man with a heart in him can but hate and abhor them? England's best friends to-day are those who deplore this assault on the farmer Boers, so like ourselves a century back. Could any man be found strong enough to stay her hand with sword or pen in this mad hour? That man would deserve her lasting gratitude. This feeling of abhorrence holds in England as well as here. Take for example the following from her ablest thinker to a friend in Philadelphia:

"I rejoice that you and others are bent on showing that there are some among us who think the national honor is not being enhanced by putting down the weak. Would that age and ill health did not prevent me from aiding.

"No one can deny that at the time of the Jameson Raid the aim of the Outlanders and the raiders was to usurp the Transvaal Government, and he must be willfully blind who does not see what the Outlanders failed to do by bullets they hope presently to do by votes, and only those who, while jealous of their own independence, regard but little the independence of people who stand in their way, can fail to sympathize with the Boers in their resistance to political extinction.

"It is sad to see our Government backing those whose avowed policy is expansion, which, less politely expressed, means aggression, for which there is a still less polite word readily guessed. On behalf of these, the big British Empire, weapon in hand, growls out to the little Boer Republic, 'Do as I bid you.'

"I have always thought that nobleness is shown in treating tenderly those who are relatively feeble and even sacrificing on their behalf something to which there is a just claim. But, if current opinion is right, I must have been wrong."

CHANTS FOR THE BOER

BY JOAQUIN MILLER

TO THE BOERS.

The Sword of Gideon, Sword of God Be with ye, Boers. Brave men of peace Ye hewed the path, ye brake the sod, Ye fed white flocks of fat increase Where Saxon foot had never trod; Where Saxon foot unto this day Had measured not, had never known Had ye not bravely led the way And made such happy homes your own.

I think God's house must be such home. The priestess Mother, choristers Who spin and weave nor care to roam Beyond this white God's house of hers, But spinning sing and spin again. I think such silent shepherd men Most like that few the prophet sings-- Most like that few stout Abram drew Triumphant o'er the slaughtered Kings.

Defend God's house! Let fall the crook. Draw forth the plowshare from the sod And trust, as in the Holy Book, The Sword of Gideon and of God; God and the right! Enough to fight A million regiments of wrong. Defend! Nor count what comes of it. God's battle bides not with the strong; And pride must fall. Lo, it is writ!

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