[Editor: This poem by Marie E. J. Pitt was published in The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses (1911).]
’Twixt Briton and Boer.
They made a war upon the land —
In Freedom’s name, they said —
To overthrow the rebel band
With Kruger at its head.
They made a war upon the land —
And Britain’s bravest bled.
They drove the foeman from his field,
They spoiled his tents afar,
They saw his stubborn horsemen yield
On reddened fields of war,
Till like a worn-out meteor, reeled
And sank his sullen star.
Nor man, nor home, nor beast they spared,
The flames before them sped,
And wild and high the roof tree flared
Above the homeless head,
And cannon growled, and trumpets blared
Above the Burgher dead.
At last o’er barn, and byre, and street,
Died down the flame of woe,
The last resonant drum had beat,
The last gun thundered low —
There sat on Freedom’s lofty seat
A Leper — white as snow.
Source:
Marie E. J. Pitt, The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses, Melbourne: Specialty Press, 1911, page 37
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