THE PEACE OF DIVES

"Where the anxious traders know

"Each is surety for his foe,

"And none may thrive without his fellows' grace.

"Now this is all my subtlety and this is all my wit,

"God give thee good enlightenment, My Master in

the Pit.

"But behold all Earth is laid

"In the peace which I have made,

66 And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!"

SOUTH AFRICA

LIVED a woman wonderful,

(May the Lord amend her!) Neither simple, kind, nor true, But her Pagan beauty drew Christian gentlemen a few Hotly to attend her.

Christian gentlemen a few

From Berwick unto Dover;

For she was South Africa,
And she was South Africa,

She was our South Africa,
Africa all over!

Half her land was dead with drouth,

Half was red with battle;

She was fenced with fire and sword, Plague on pestilence outpoured,

Locusts on the greening sward

And murrain on the cattle!

SOUTH AFRICA

True, ah true, and overtrue;

That is why we love her! For she is South Africa,

And she is South Africa,

She is our South Africa,

Africa all over!

Bitter hard her lovers toiled, Scandalous their payment,Food forgot on trains derailed; Cattle-dung where fuel failed; Water where the mules had staled; And sackcloth for their raiment!

So she filled their mouths with dust And their bones with fever; Greeted them with cruel lies; Treated them despiteful-wise; Meted them calamities

Till they vowed to leave her.

They took ship and they took sail, Raging, from her borders, —

In a little, none the less,

They forgat their sore duresse,
They forgave her waywardness
And returned for orders!

SOUTH AFRICA

They esteemed her favour more

Than a Throne's foundation.

For the glory of her face

Bade farewell to breed and race

Yea, and made their burial-place

Altar of a Nation!

Wherefore, being bought by blood
And by blood restorèd

To the arms that nearly lost,
She, because of all she cost,

Stands, a very woman, most
Perfect and adorèd!

On your feet, and let them know
This is why we love her!
For she is South Africa,
She is our South Africa,

Is our own South Africa,
Africa all over!

THE SETTLER

HERE, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,

I will repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead.

Here, where the senseless bullet fell,
And the barren shrapnel burst,

I will plant a tree, I will dig a well,
Against the heat and the thirst.

Here, in a large and a sunlit land,
Where no wrong bites to the bone,

I will lay my hand in my neighbour's hand,
And together we will atone

For the set folly and the red breach

And the black waste of it all,

Giving and taking counsel each

Over the cattle-kraal.

Copyright, 1903, by Rudyard Kipling.