POETRY.
SOUTH AFRICA, 1901.
THOHGH cravens clamour in the street,
And shrill, premeditated cries
Of sloth, despair, and malice rise To stay the weary runner'sofeet--
Though sophists preach from day to day Their old pedantic shibboleth, He, having known the face of death, Laughs, and unheeding goes his way. For 'mid the dust of hopeless war, The endless road, the thankless part, He sees, and seeing steels his heart, The glory of the morning star.
His soul instinct with steel and fire, The new ideals in his blood, He sets his breast against the flood, And struggles upward through the mire.
Behind the camp, beyond the strife, He sees, like pastures after rain, A mighty people born again To nobler ends, to richer life :- A people strong in deed and will, Clear-sighted, iron-handed, free: And peace, begot of liberty, Brood dovelike over dale and hill.
Though his the life of field and tent, And his the fate alone to see
From Pisgah-heights the things to be, He has the dream and is content—
Even as the wayfarer may stand Where in the plain the tempest blows, While through the storm-cloud far off glows A sunlit, rain-washed mountain land. B.
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