* * * * * Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, Whatever I had she gave me again; And the best of Balliol loved and led me, God be with you, Balliol men. VERSES TO A LORD WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SAID THAT THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH AFRICAN ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS You thought because we held, my lord, An ancient cause and strong, That therefore we maligned the sword: My lord, you did us wrong. We also know the sacred height Up on Tugela side, Where those three hundred fought with Beit And fair young Wernher died. The daybreak on the failing force, The final sabres drawn: Tall Goltman, silent on his horse, Superb against the dawn. The little mound where Eckstein stood And gallant Albu fell, And Oppenheim, half blind with blood, Went fording through the rising flood-- My Lord, we know them well. The little empty homes forlorn, The ruined synagogues that mourn, In Frankfort and Berlin; We knew them when the peace was torn-- We of a nobler lineage born-- And now by all the gods of scorn We mean to rub them in. THE REBEL There is a wall of which the stones Are lies and bribes and dead men’s bones. And wrongfully this evil wall Denies what all men made for all, And shamelessly this wall surrounds Our homesteads and our native grounds. But I will gather and I will ride, And I will summon a countryside, And many a man shall hear my halloa Who never had thought the horn to follow; And many a man shall ride with me Who never had thought on earth to see High Justice in her armoury. When we find them where they stand, A mile of men on either hand, I mean to charge from right away And force the flanks of their array, And press them inward from the plains, And drive them clamouring down the lanes, And gallop and harry and have them down, And carry the gates and hold the town. Then shall I rest me from my ride With my great anger satisfied. Only, before I eat and drink, When I have killed them all, I think That I will batter their carven names, And slit the pictures in their frames, And burn for scent their cedar door, And melt the gold their women wore, And hack their horses at the knees, And hew to death their timber trees, And plough their gardens deep and through-- And all these things I mean to do For fear perhaps my little son Should break his hands, as I have done. THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING Strong God which made the topmost stars To circulate and keep their course, Remember me; whom all the bars Of sense and dreadful fate enforce. Above me in your heights and tall, Impassable the summits freeze, Below the haunted waters call Impassable beyond the trees.