THE WAGE-SLAVES Wherefore to these the Fates shall bend (And all old idle things-) Wherefore on these shall Power attend Each in his place, by right, not grace, The men who simply do the work Not such as scorn the loitering street, About their morning ways: But such as dower each mortgaged hour Alike with clean courage Even the men who do the work For which they draw the wage Men like to Gods that do the work THE BURIAL C. J. RHODES, buried in the Matoppos, April 10, 1902 WHEN that great Kings return to clay, Because its creature died. But we-we reckon not with those Whom the mere Fates ordain, This Power that wrought on us and goes 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 So brief the term allowed Nations, not words, he linked to prove His faith before the crowd. The granite of the ancient North- There, till the vision he foresaw 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! GENERAL JOUBERT (Died March 27, 1900) WITH 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! Copyright, 1900, by Rudyard Kipling. THE PALACE WHEN 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." |