THE BURIAL

(1902)

C. J. Rhodes, buried in the Matoppos, April 10, 1902

W

HEN that great Kings return to clay,

Or Emperors in their pride,

Grief of a day shall fill a day,

Because its creature died.

But we we reckon not with those

Whom the mere Fates ordain,
This Power that wrought on us and goes
Back to the Power again.

Dreamer devout, by vision led

Beyond our guess or reach,

The travail of his spirit bred
Cities in place of speech.

So huge the all-mastering thought that drove-
So brief the term allowed-
Nations, not words, he linked to prove

His faith before the crowd.

It is his will that he look forth
Across the world he won-

The granite of the ancient North-
Great spaces washed with sun.

There shall he patient make his seat (As when the Death he dared), And there await a people's feet

In the paths that he prepared.

There, till the vision he foresaw
Splendid and whole arise,
And unimagined Empires draw
To council 'neath his skies,
The immense and brooding Spirit still
Shall quicken and control.

Living he was the land, and dead,
His soul shall be her soul!

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GENERAL JOUBERT

(Died March 27, 1900)

ITH those that bred, with those that loosed the strife,

He had no part whose hands were clear of
gain;

But subtle, strong, and stubborn, gave his life
To a lost cause, and knew the gift was vain.

Later shall rise a people, sane and great,

Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one; Telling old battles over without hate

Not least his name shall pass from sire to son.

He may not meet the onsweep of our van

In the doomed city when we close the score; Yet o'er his grave-his grave that holds a manOur deep-tongued guns shall answer his once more!

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THE PALACE

(1902)

HEN I was a King and a Mason-a Master
proven and skilled-

I cleared me ground for a palace such as a
King should build.

I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under

the silt,

I came on the wreck of a palace such as a King had

built.

There was no worth in the fashion-there was no wit in the plan

Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran— Masonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone: 'After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known.'

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,

I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.

Lime I milled of the marbles: burned it, slacked it, and

spread;

Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble

dead.

THE PALACE

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them

apart,

I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's

heart.

As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand

The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

When I was a King and a Mason-in the open noon of my pride,

They sent me a Word from the Darkness-They whispered and called me aside.

They said "The end is forbidden.' They said "Thy use is fulfilled,

And thy palace shall stand as that other's-the spoil of a King who shall build.'

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves, and my shears.

All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faith

less years.

Only I cut on the timber, only I carved on the stone: 'After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known!'