THE LAST TREK.

WHO comes, to sob of slow-breathed guns borne past

In solemn pageant ? This is he that threw Challenge to England. From the veld he drew A strength that bade her sea-strength pause, aghast, Before the bastions vast And infinite redoubts of the Karoo.

" Pass, friend !" who living were so stout a foe, Unquelled, unwon, not uncommiserate! The British sentry at Van Riebeck's gate

Salutes you, and as once three years ago The crowd moves hushed and slow, And silence holds the city desolate.

The long last trek begins. Now something thrills Our English hearts, that, unconfessed and dim, Drew Dutch hearts north, that April day, with him Whose grave is hewn in the eternal hills.

The war of these two wills Was as the warring of the Anakim.

What might have been, had these two been at one ? Or had the wise old peasant, wiser yet, Taught strength to mate with freedom and beget The true republic, nor, till sands had run, Gripped close as Bible and gun The keys of power, like some fond amulet ?

He called to God for storm ; and on his head— Alas ! not his alone—the thunders fell.

But not by his own text, who ill could spell, Nor in our shallow scales shall be be weighed, Whose dust, lapped round with lead, To shrill debate lies inaccessible.

Bred up to beard the lion, youth and man He towered the great chief of a little folk ; Till, once, the scarred old hunter missed his stroke, And by the blue Mediterranean

Pined for some brackish pan

Far south, self-exiled, till the tired heart broke. Our password. Home, then ! by the northward way He trod with heroes of the trek, when they On seas of desert launched their waggonships.

The dream new worlds eclipse Yet shed a glory through their narrower day.

Bear home your dead ; nor from our wreaths recoil,

Sad Boers ; like some rough foster-sire shall be

Be honoured by our sons, co-heirs made free Of Africa, like yours, by blood and toil, And proud that British soil, Which bore, received him back in obsequy.

F. EDMUND GARRETT.