Take up the White Man's burden-
Have done with childish days-
The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

PHARAOH AND THE SERGEANT

(1897)

Consider that the meritorious services of the

Sergeant Instructors attached to the Egyptian Army have been inadequately acknowledged.

To the excellence of their work is mainly due the great improvement that has taken place in the soldiers of H. H. the Khedive.'

S

Extract from letter.

AID England unto Pharaoh, 'I must make a man of you,

That will stand upon his feet and play the game; That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to

do,'

And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname.

It was not a Duke nor Earl, nor yet a Vis-count-
It was not a big brass General that came;
But a man in khaki kit who could handle men a bit,
With his bedding labelled Sergeant Whatisname.

Said England unto Pharaoh, 'Though at present singing small,

You shall hum a proper tune before it ends,'

And she introduced old Pharaoh to the Sergeant once

for all,

And left 'em in the desert making friends.

It was not a Crystal Palace nor Cathedral;

It was not a public-house of common fame; But a piece of red-hot sand, with a palm on either hand,

And a little hut for Sergeant Whatisname.

Said England unto Pharaoh, 'You've had miracles before,

When Aaron struck your rivers into blood:

But if you watch the Sergeant he can show you something more.

He's a charm for making riflemen from mud.'

It was neither Hindustani, French, nor Coptics;

It was odds and ends and leavings of the same, Translated by a stick (which is really half the trick), And Pharaoh harked to Sergeant Whatisname.

(There were years that no one talked of; there were times of horrid doubt

There was faith and hope and whacking and despairWhile the Sergeant gave the Cautions and he combed old Pharaoh out,

And England didn't seem to know nor care.

That is England's awful way o' doing business-
She would serve her God or Gordon just the

same

For she thinks her Empire still is the Strand and
Holborn Hill,

And she didn't think of Sergeant Whatisname.)

Said England to the Sergeant, 'You can let my people go!' (England used 'em cheap and nasty from the start), And they entered 'em in battle on a most astonished foeBut the Sergeant he had hardened Pharaoh's heart.

PHARAOH AND THE SERGEANT

That was broke, along of all the plagues of Egypt,
Three thousand years before the Sergeant came-
And he mended it again in a little more than ten,
So Pharaoh fought like Sergeant Whatisname!

It was wicked bad campaigning (cheap and nasty from the first),

There was heat and dust and coolie-work and sun, There were vipers, flies, and sandstorms, there was cholera and thirst,

But Pharaoh done the best he ever done.

Down the desert, down the railway, down the river,
Like the Israelites from bondage so he came,
"Tween the clouds o' dust and fire to the land of his
desire,

And his Moses, it was Sergeant Whatisname!

We are eating dirt in handfuls for to save our daily bread,

Which we have to buy from those that hate us most, And we must not raise the money where the Sergeant raised the dead,

And it's wrong and bad and dangerous to boast.

But he did it on the cheap and on the quiet,

And he's not allowed to forward any claimThough he drilled a black man white, though he made a mummy fight,

He will still continue Sergeant WhatisnamePrivate, Corporal, Colour-Sergeant, and Instructor

But the everlasting miracle's the same!

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

(Canadian Preferential Tariff, 1897)

NATION spoke to a Nation,

A

A Queen sent word to a Throne:
'Daughter am I in my mother's house,
But mistress in my own.

The gates are mine to open,
As the gates are mine to close,
And I set my house in order,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.

'Neither with laughter nor weeping,
Fear or the child's amaze—
Soberly under the White Man's law
My white men go their ways.
Not for the Gentiles' clamour-
Insult or threat of blows-

Bow we the knee to Baal,'

Said our Lady of the Snows.

'My speech is clean and single,

I talk of common things

Words of the wharf and the market-place
And the ware the merchant brings: