BRIDGE-GUARD IN THE KARROO

and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge."

District Orders-Lines of Communication.

SUDDEN the desert changes,

The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges

Stand up like the thrones of kings

The twilight swallows the thicket

The starlight reveals the ridge;

The whistle shrills to the picket

We are changing guard on the bridge.

Voices of jackals calling

And, loud in the hush between,

A morsel of dry earth falling

From the flanks of the scarred ravine.

And the solemn firmament marches,
And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches-
Banded and barred by the ties,

Till we feel the far track humming,
And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming-
The wonderful north-bound train.

(Few, forgotten and lonely,

Where the white car-windows shine

No, not combatants-only

Details guarding the line.)

Quick, ere the gift escape us!

Out of the darkness we reach For a handful of week-old papers

And a mouthful of human speech.

THE LESSON

(1899-1902)

et us admit it fairly, as a business people should, We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.

ot on a single issue, or in one direction or twain, at conclusively, comprehensively, and several times and again,

ere all our most holy illusions knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite.

- have had a jolly good lesson, and it serves us jolly well right!

s was not bestowèd us under the trees, nor yet in the shade of a tent,

swingingly, over eleven degrees of a bare brown continent.

t, 1901, by Rudyard Kipling