Read Ebook: Chants for the Boer by Miller Joaquin

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 89 lines and 8915 words, and 2 pages

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!

Great England's Gold! how stanch she fares Fame's wine cup pressing her proud lips-- Her checkerboard of battle squares Rimmed round by steel-built battleships! And yet meanwhiles ten thousand miles She seeks ye out. Well, welcome her! Give her such welcome with such will As Boston gave in battle's whir That red, dread day at Bunker Hill.

SAN FRANCISCO, September, 1899.

TO YE FIGHTING LORDS OF LONDON TOWN.

CHRISTMAS MORNING, 1899.

We wish you well in all that's well, Would bind your wounds, would clothe, would feed-- Lay flowers where your brave men fell In desert lands, exalt each deed Of sacrifice; would beg to lay White lilies by the gray hearthstone Where, bowed in black this Christmas day, She wails her brave dead far away And weeps, so more than all alone: Weeps while the chime, the chilly chime, Drops on her heart, drops all the time As one might drop a stone.

But you, ye lords and gentlemen High throned, safe housed at home, fat fed, When ye say we approve ye, when Ye say this blood so bravely shed Is shed with our consent, take care, Lest Truth may take ye unaware; Lest Truth be heard despite these chimes. This hearthstone, brother's blood that cries To God is Freedom's blood. Take care Lest all sweet earth these piteous times Not only hate ye for your crimes, But scorn ye for your lies!

We would forgive could we forget: We could forget all wrongs we knew Had ye stayed hand some little yet-- Left to their own that farmer few So like ourselves that fateful hour Ye forced our farmers from the plow To grapple with your tenfold power. They guessed your greed, we know it now; And now we ward ye from this hour! Now, well awake no more we sleep, But keep and keep and ever keep To Freedom's high watchtower.

Not all because our Washington In battle's carnage, years and years, And this same Boer braved ye as one-- Blent blood with blood and tears with tears: Not all because of kindred blood, Not all because they built a town And left such names of true renown. Not all because of Luther, Huss: But most because of Brotherhood In Freedom's Hall; the holy right To fight for Home, as freemen fight-- Who Freedom stabs, stabs Us!

This Nation's heart, say what men may Who butcher Peace and barter Truth, Beats true as on its natal day, Beats true as in its battle-youth, Beats true to Freedom, true to Truth, Whatever Tories dare to say. Of all who fought with Washington One Arnold was and only one. Christ chose but twelve, yet one poor soul Sold God for silver. Ever thus Some taint, and even so with Us: But Freedom thrills the whole.

My Lords, ye lead, through Him who died, Your dauntless millions. Ye are wise And learned. Ye are, beside, As God's anointed in their eyes, Ye sit so far above their reach. Such trust! But are ye truly true To what He taught, to what ye preach, To those who trust and look to you? Then why mocked ye that manly Russ, That august man, that manliest man That yet has been since time began? Ye mocked, as ye mock Us!

My Lords, slow paced and somber clad Ye all will fare to church to-day And there sit solemn faced and sad With eyes to book, as if to pray. And will ye think of Him who came And lived so poor and died so lorn-- Came in the name of Peace, the name Of God, that fair first Christmas morn? My Lords, ye needs must think to-day-- Your eyes bent to the Holy Book The while the people look and look-- For dare ye try to pray?

And while ye think of Christ the child Think of the childless mother, she Whose dead boy has his desert wild, While yours his Christmas tree; Think of the mother, far away, Who sits and weeps with hollow eyes, Her hungry child that cries and cries Forlorn and fatherless to-day: Think of the thousand homes that weep All desolate, who but for ye To-day had decked their Christmas tree; Then fare ye home and--sleep?

MOTHER EGYPT.

Dark browed, she broods with weary lids Beside her Sphinx and Pyramids, With low and never-lifted head. If she be dead, respect the dead; If she be weeping, let her weep; If she be sleeping, let her sleep; For lo, this woman named the stars! She suckled at her tawny dugs Your Moses while you reeked in wars And prowled your woods, nude, painted thugs.

Then back, brave England; back in peace To Christian isles of fat increase! Go back! Else bid your high priests bear The sword and curse the sweet plowshare; Take down their cross from proud Saint Paul's And coin it into cannon-balls! You tent not far from Nazareth, Your camps trench where his child-feet strayed. If Christ had seen this work of death! If Christ had seen these ships invade!

I think the patient Christ had said, "Go back, brave men! Take up your dead; Draw down your great ships to the seas; Repass the gates of Hercules; Go back to wife with babe at breast, And leave lorn Egypt to her rest." Or is Christ dead, as Egypt is? Ah, England, hear me yet again; There's something grimly wrong in this-- So like some gray, sad woman slain.

What would you have your mother do? Hath she not done enough for you? Go back! And when you learn to read, Come read this obelisk. Her deed Like yonder awful forehead is Disdainful silence. Like to this What lessons have you writ in stone To passing nations that shall stand? Why, years, as hers, will leave you lone And level as yon yellow sand.

Saint George? Your lions? Whence are they? From awful, silent Africa. This Egypt is the lion's lair; Beware, brave Albion, beware! I feel the very Nile should rise To drive you from this sacrifice. And if the seven plagues should come? The red seas swallow sword and steed? Lo! Christian lands stand mute and dumb To see thy more than Moslem deed.

ANGLO-SAXON ALLIANCE.

Alliance! And with whom? For what? Comes there the skin-clad Vandal down From Danube's wilds with vengeance hot? Comes Turk with torch to sack the town And wake the world with battle shot? Come wild beasts loosened from the lair? No, no! Right fair blue Danube sweeps. No, no! The Turk, the wild beast sleeps. No, no! There's something more than this-- Or Judas' kiss? Or serpent's hiss? There's mischief in the air!

Alliance! And with whom? For what? Did we not bear an hundred years Of England's hate, hot battle shot, Blent, ever blent, with scorn and jeers? And we survived it, did we not? We bore her hate, let's try to bear Her love; but watch her and beware! Beware the Greek with gifts and fair Kind promises and courtly praise. Beware the serpent's subtle ways-- There's mischief in the air!

Alliance! And for what? With whom? She burned our Freedom's Fane. She spat Vile venom on the sacred tomb Of Washington; the while she sat High throned, fat fed, and safe at home, And bade slaves hound and burn and slay, Just as in Africa to-day; Just as she would, will when she dare Send sword and torch and once again Make red the white rim of our main-- There's mischief in the air!

Alliance! Twice with sword and flame: Alliance! Thrice with craft and fraud: And now you come in Freedom's name. In Freedom's name? The name of God! Go to--the Boers. For shame, for shame! With wedge of gold you split us twain Then launched your bloodhounds on the main; But now, my Lords, so soft, so fair-- How long would this a-lie-ance last? Just long enough to tie Us fast-- Then music in the air!

INDIA AND THE BOERS.

You heard that song of the Jubilee! Ten thousand cannon took up the song, Ten million people came out to see, A surging, eager and anxious throng. And the great were glad as glad could be; Glad at Windsor, glad at Saint James, Glad of glory and of storied names, Generals, lords and gentlemen, Such as we never may see again, And ten thousand banners aflying! But up the Thames and down the Thames Bare, hungered babes lay crying, Poor, homeless men sat sighing; And far away, in fair Cathay, An Eden land but yesterday, Lay millions, starving, dying.

Prone India! All her storied gems-- Those stolen gems that decked the Crown And glittered in those garment-hems, That Jubilee in London town-- Were not, and all her walls were down, Her plowshare eaten up with rust, Her peaceful people prone in dust, Her wells gone dry and drying. You ask how came these things to be? I turn you straight to historie; To generals, lords and gentlemen Who cut the dykes, blew down the walls And plowed the land with cannon-balls, Then sacked the ruined land and then-- Great London and the Jubilee, With lying banners aflying.

Eight millions starved to death! You hear? You heard the song of that Jubilee, And you might have heard, had you given ear, My generals, lords and gentlemen, From where the Ganges seeks the sea, Such wails between the notes, I fear, As you never had cared to hear again. The dead heaped down in the dried-up wells, The dead, like corn, in the fertile fields You had plowed and crossed with your cannon wheels, The dead in towns that were burning hells Because the water was under your heels! They thirsted! You drank at the Jubilee, My generals, lords and gentlemen, Drank as you hardly may come to when The final account of your deeds may be.

Eight millions starved! Yet the Jubilee-- Why, never such glory since Solomon's throne. The world was glad that it came to see, And the Saxon said, "Lo, the world is mine own!" But mark you! That glittering great Crown stone, And the thousand stars that dimmed in this sun, Were stolen, were stolen every one, Were stolen from those who starved and died!

Brave Boers, grim Boers, look to your guns! They want your diamonds, these younger ones-- Young generals, lords and gentlemen-- Robbers to-day as they were robbers then. Look to your guns! for a child can see That they want your gems! Ah, that Jubilee, With those lying banners aflying!

See report of Julian Hawthorne, sent by a New York magazine to photograph and give details of the starving in India, about the time of the Jubilee. He does not give these figures, but his facts and photographs warrant a fearful estimate. As for the subjugation of India and the wanton destruction, not only of life, but the very means of life, this is history. And now, again, is despoiled India starving,--starving, dying of hunger as before; even more fearfully, even while England is trying to despoil the Boers. And when her speculators and politicians have beaten them and despoiled them of their gold and diamonds and herds, what then? Why, leave them to starve as in India, or struggle on in the wilderness as best they can.

AT THE CALEND'S CLOSE.

Two things: the triple great North Star, To poise and keep His spheres in place, And Zeus for peace: for peace the Tzar. Or Science, Progress, Good or Grace, These two the centum's fruitage are; And of the two this olive tree Stands first, aye, first since Galilee.

The eagle's bent beak at the throat Of Peace where far, fair islands lie: The greedy lion sees a mote In his brave, weaker brother's eye And crouches low, to gorge and gloat. The Prince of Peace? Ye write his name In blood, then dare to pray! For shame!

These Saxon lies on top of lies, Ten millstones to the neck of us, Forbid that we should lift our eyes Till we dare meet that manlier Russ; In peons for peace of paradise: Forbid that we, until the day We wash our hands, should dare to pray.

AS IT IS WRITTEN.

The she wolf's ruthless whelp that tare Old Africa is dead and all Despised; but Egypt still is fair, Jugartha brave; and Hannibal Still hero of the Alps and more To-day than all red men of Rome. Archimedes still holds his measured home; Grim Marius his ruins as of yore, And heart still turns to heart, as then. Live by the sword and by the sword Ye surely die: thus saith the Lord-- And die despised of men.

TO OOM PAUL KRUGER.

ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY.

His shield a skin, his sword a prayer: Seventy-five years old to-day! Yet mailed young hosts are marshaling there To hound down in his native lair-- Oom Paul Kruger, South Africa.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet