*THE PEOPLE TO CECIL JOHN RHODES,* JULY 18, 1899 By the bond that binds the scattered folk to home, We have come. By the love to dear old England which you bear— And we share, By the knowledge of the Empire you extend— Britain’s friend!— We are gathered, many thousand people, to Welcome you! We are strangers drawn together by one tie, They and I, Merely men who, having never met before, Meet no more! But a common cause has bridged the social breach, Each to each Has one soft word of fellowship to say, Here to-day. If you search among our numbers you will find Every kind: Dutchman, Briton, ’Africander,’ and Malay In array; Christian, Mussulman, and he of Abram’s seed— Every creed: With the worshippers of _Sakyanumi’s_ mud— Mighty Budh. But if every heart was melted, and when done Moulded one— If a welcome in a polyglotic tongue Could be sung— If one voice could speak our sentiments to-day, We would say, Very simply: ’We are glad that you are come— Welcome home!’ We have followed you, and watched your noble stand For your land. And your triumphs and your greatly troubled hours. Have been ours: And our sympathetic wishes for your cause, Have been yours: Since the day on which you left us to go forth, ’For my North!’ We have followed you through many foreign ways, In these days. By the Nilus, on the Desert, new surveyed, You have strayed: By the Pyramids and palms of Cairo town, Parched and brown: By the quiet shades of Oxford, prim and green, You have been. In the stately city hall, in spirit we Came to see The cheering thousands testify belief, In their Chief. In the regal courts of Potsdam, at your side We were tied, By the tighter bond than kinship ever drew—- We and you! If our hearts in concord melted and were run Into one! If a welcome in a polyglotic tongue. Could be sung: If two words could voice our sentiments to-day, We would say— Very simply, being glad that you are come— ’Welcome home!’ *WHEN LONDON CALLS!* There’s a voice that calls to Mecca, there’s a voice that calls to Rome. (O the Holiest of Holies! O the Temple and the Shrine!) There’s a bleating from a pasture, and it calls a wand’rer home. (O the friskings of the yearlings, and the lowing of the kine!) There’s a penetrating whisper that can rise above the gale From the cot of thatch and plaster, from the oaken-gabled hall, From the limpid lake of silver in the verdant velvet vale, From the shamrock and the heather, Hear the call!