CHANTS
FOR THE
BOER

By
JOAQUIN MILLER

“And whether on the scaffold high,
Or in the battle’s van,
The fittest place for man to die
Is where he dies for man.”

San Francisco
The Whitaker & Ray Company
(Incorporated)
1900

Copyright, 1900
by
The Whitaker & Ray Company
(Incorporated)

CONTENTS.

For the right that needs assistance,

For the wrong that needs resistance,

For the glory in the distance,

For the good that we can do.

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.”

Herbert Spencer.

CHANTS
FOR THE BOER

BY
JOAQUIN MILLER

TO THE BOERS.

“For Freedom’s battles once begun,

Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft, are ever won.”

—BYRON.

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.

“The equipment of the Maine hospital ship by our American cousins warrants us in saying at least that they wish us well.”

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.[A]

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?

[A] Note.—“I thank God there is not a drop of Saxon blood in my veins. I am a Dutchman; Boer, if you please.”—Rough-rider Roosevelt, Governor of New York and heir apparent to the Presidency of Us.

MOTHER EGYPT.

Dedicated to England on her invasion of North Africa.

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.

England’s Colonial Secretary, who must bear a great part of the blame and shame of this Boer war, has said publicly that there is something like alliance between England and the United States. Our Secretary of State says there is nothing of the sort, and we know there is not, nor can be, until “We, the People,” choose to have it, and that will not be until this crime against the Boer is forgotten, as well as Bunker Hill and the Fourth of July.

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.

The Boers are a sober, industrious and most hospitable body of peasantry.—Dr. Livingstone.

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?[B]

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,