The Five Nations, Volume II — Reading Notes

even degrees of a bare brown continent. From Lamberts to Delagoa Bay, and from Pietersburg to Sutherland, Fell the phenomenal lesson we learned--with a fulness accorded no other land.

It was our fault, and our very great fault, and _not_ the judgment of Heaven. We made an Army in our own image, on an island nine by seven, Which faithfully mirrored its makers’ ideals, equipment, and mental attitude-- And so we got our lesson: and we ought to accept it with gratitude.

We have spent two hundred million pounds to prove the fact once more, That horses are quicker than men afoot, since two and two make four: And horses have four legs, and men have two legs, and two into four goes twice, And nothing over except our lesson--and very cheap at the price.

For remember (this our children shall know: we are too near for that knowledge) Not our mere astonied camps, but Council and Creed and College-- All the obese, unchallenged old things that stifle and overlie us-- Have felt the effects of the lesson we got--an advantage no money could buy us!

Then let us develop this marvellous asset which we alone command, And which, it may subsequently transpire, will be worth as much as the Rand: Let us approach this pivotal fact in a humble yet hopeful mood-- We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good!

It was our fault, and our very great fault--and now we must turn it to use; We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse! So the more we work and the less we talk the better results we shall get-- We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!

(THE SUB-EDITOR SPEAKS)

Files-- The Files-- Office Files! Oblige me by referring to the files. Every question man can raise, Every phrase of every phase Of that question is on record in the files-- (Threshed out threadbare--fought and finished in the files). Ere the Universe at large Was our new-tipped arrows’ targe-- Ere we rediscovered Mammon and his wiles-- Faenza, gentle reader, spent her--five-and-twentieth leader (You will find him, and some others, in the files). Warn all future Robert Brownings and Carlyles, It will interest them to hunt among the files, Where unvisited, a-cold, Lie the crowded years of old In that Kensall-Green of greatness called the files-- (In our newspaPère-la-Chaise the office files), Where the dead men lay them down Meekly sure of long renown, And above them, sere and swift, Packs the daily deepening drift Of the all-recording, all-effacing files-- The obliterating, automatic files. Count the mighty men who slung Ink, Evangel, Sword, or Tongue When Reform and you were young-- Made their boasts and spake according in the files-- (Hear the ghosts that wake applauding in the files!) Trace each all-forgot career From long primer through brevier Unto Death, a para minion in the files (Para minion--solid--bottom of the files).... Some successful Kings and Queens adorn the files, They were great, their views were leaded, And their deaths were triple-headed, So they catch the eye in running through the files (Show as blazes in the mazes of the files); For their ‘paramours and priests,’ And their gross, jack-booted feasts, And their epoch-marking actions see the files. Was it Bomba fled the blue Sicilian isles? Was it Saffi, a professor Once of Oxford, brought redress or Garibaldi? Who remembers Forty-odd-year old Septembers?-- Only sextons paid to dig among the files (Such as I am, born and bred among the files). You must hack through much deposit Ere you know for sure who was it Came to burial with such honour in the files (Only seven seasons back beneath the files). ‘Very great our loss and grievous-- ‘So our best and brightest leave us, ‘And it ends the Age of Giants,’ say the files; All the ’60--’70--’80--’90 files (The open-minded, opportunist files-- The easy ‘O King, live for ever’ files). It is good to read a little in the files; ’Tis a sure and sovereign balm Unto philosophic calm, Yea, and philosophic doubt when Life beguiles. When you know Success is Greatness, When you marvel at your lateness In apprehending facts so plain to Smiles (Self-helpful, wholly strenuous Samuel Smiles). When your Imp of Blind Desire Bids you set the Thames afire, You’ll remember men have done so--in the files. You’ll have seen those flames transpire--in the files (More than once that flood has run so--in the files). When the Conchimarian horns Of the reboantic Norns Usher gentlemen and ladies With new lights on Heaven and Hades, Guaranteeing to Eternity All yesterday’s modernity; When Brocken-spectres made by Some one’s breath on ink parade by, Very earnest and tremendous, Let not shows of shows offend us. When of everything we like we Shout ecstatic:--’_Quod ubique, Quod ab omnibus_ means _semper!_’ Oh, my brother, keep your temper! Light your pipe and take a look along the files! You’ve a better chance to guess At the meaning of Success (Which is Greatness--_vide_ press) When you’ve seen it in perspective in the files.

THE REFORMERS [Page 23]

_Not in the camp his victory lies Or triumph in the market-place, Who is his Nation’s sacrifice To turn the judgment from his race._

Happy is he who, bred and taught By sleek, sufficing Circumstance-- Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought, Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance--

Sees, on the threshold of his days, The old life shrivel like a scroll, And to unheralded dismays Submits his body and his soul;

The fatted shows wherein he stood Foregoing, and the idiot pride, That he may prove with his own blood All that his easy sires denied--

Ultimate issues, primal springs, Demands, abasements, penalties-- The imperishable plinth of things Seen and unseen, that touch our peace.

For, though ensnaring ritual dim His vision through the after-years, Yet virtue shall go out of him: Example profiting his peers.

With great things charged he shall not hold Aloof till great occasion rise, But serve, full-harnessed, as of old, The days that are the destinies.

He shall forswear and put away The idols of his sheltered house; And to Necessity shall pay Unflinching tribute of his vows.

He shall not plead another’s act, Nor bind him in another’s oath To weigh the Word above the Fact, Or make or take excuse for sloth.

The yoke he bore shall press him still, And long-ingrained effort goad To find, to fashion, and fulfil The cleaner life, the sterner code.

_Not in the camp his victory lies-- The world (unheeding his return) Shall see it in his children’s eyes And from his grandson’s lips shall learn!_

DIRGE OF DEAD SISTERS [Page 26]

Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order (Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?) And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter, And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?

(Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils, Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by-- Let us now remember many honourable women, Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.)

Who recalls the morning and the thunder through the foothills (Tufts of fleecy shrapnel strung along the empty plains?) And the sun-scarred Red-Cross coaches creeping guarded to the culvert, And the faces of the Sisters looking gravely from the trains?

(When the days were torment and the nights were clouded terror, When the Powers of Darkness had dominion on our soul-- When we fled consuming through the Seven Hells of fever, These put out their hands to us and healed and made us whole.)

Who recalls the midnight by the bridge’s wrecked abutment (Autumn rain that rattled like a Maxim on the tin?) And the lightning-dazzled levels and the streaming, straining wagons, And the faces of the Sisters as they bore the wounded in?

(Till the pain was merciful and stunned us into silence-- When each nerve cried out on God that made the misused clay; When the Body triumphed and the last poor shame departed-- These abode our agonies and wiped the sweat away.)

Who recalls the noontide and the funerals through the market (Blanket-hidden bodies, flagless, followed by the flies?) And the footsore firing-party, and the dust and stench and staleness, And the faces of the Sisters and the glory in their eyes?

(Bold behind the battle, in the open camp all-hallowed, Patient, wise, and mirthful in the ringed and reeking town, These endured unresting till they rested from their labours-- Little wasted bodies, ah, so light to lower down!)

Yet their graves are scattered and their names are clean forgotten, Earth shall not remember, but the Waiting Angel knows Them that died at Uitvlugt when the plague was on the city-- Her that fell at Simon’s Town in service on our foes.

_Wherefore we they ransomed, while the breath is in our nostrils, Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by, Praise with love and worship many honourable women, Those that gave their lives for us when we were like to die!_

THE ISLANDERS [Page 31]

_No doubt but ye are the People--your throne is above the King’s. Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things: Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear-- Bringing the word well smoothen--such as a King should hear._

Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden seas, Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease; Till ye said of Strife, ‘What is it?’ of the Sword, ‘It is far from our ken’; Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your armed men. Ye stopped your ears to the warning--ye would neither look nor heed-- Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts above their need. Because of your witless learning and your beasts of warren and chase, Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields for their camping-place. Ye forced them glean in the highways the straw for the bricks they brought; Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught. Ye hindered and hampered and crippled; ye thrust out of sight and away Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for pay. Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed, At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field. Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land’s long-suffering Star), When your strong men cheered in their millions while your striplings went to the war. Sons of the sheltered city--unmade, unhandled, unmeet-- Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the street. And what did ye look they should compass? War-craft learned in a breath, Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death? So! And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize? How are the beasts more worthy than the souls your sacrifice? But ye said, ‘Their valour shall show them’; but ye said, ‘The end is close.’ And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes, And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride, Ere--ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride! Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals. Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie, Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by Waiting some easy wonder: hoping some saving sign-- Idle--openly idle--in the lee of the forespent Line. Idle--except for your boasting--and what is your boasting worth If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth? Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set, Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep. Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep. Men, not children, servants, or kinsfolk called from afar, But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war. Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same; Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game-- As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste, But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste. As it were almost cricket--as it were even your play, Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day. So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake. So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap Forthright, accoutred, accepting--alert from the wells of sleep. So at the threat ye shall summon--so at the need ye shall send Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice. But ye say, ‘It will mar our comfort.’ Ye say, ‘It will minish our trade.’ Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid? For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.) Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds, With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods? Will the rabbit war with your foemen--the red deer horn them for hire? Your kept cock-pheasant keep you?--he is master of many a shire. Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt, Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns melt? Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore? Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more? Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both? Pride by insolence chastened? Indolence purged by sloth?) No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid? Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods shall aid. Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease; Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes; Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement gods-- _These_ shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods? From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent, And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent. When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips, When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your lips; When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke, Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke.

_No doubt but ye are the People--absolute, strong, and wise; Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes. On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the saving lies!_

THE PEACE OF DIVES [Page 40]

The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay: ‘Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay, ‘And the Saint and Seer and Prophet ‘Can make no better of it ‘Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

‘Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold, ‘And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old. ‘It may be grace hath found thee ‘In the furnace where We bound thee, ‘And that thou shalt bring the peace My Son foretold.’

Then merrily rose Dives and leaped from out his fire, And walked abroad with diligence to do the Lord’s desire; And anon the battles ceased, And the captives were released, And Earth had rest from Goshen to Gadire.

The Word came down to Satan that raged and roared alone, ’Mid the shouting of the peoples by the cannon overthrown (But the Prophets, Saints, and Seers Set each other by the ears, For each would claim the marvel as his own):

‘Rise up, rise up, thou Satan, upon the Earth to go, ‘And prove the peace of Dives if it be good or no: ‘For all that he hath planned ‘We deliver to thy hand, ‘As thy skill shall serve to break it or bring low.’

Then mightily rose Satan, and about the Earth he hied, And breathed on Kings in idleness and Princes drunk with pride; But for all the wrong he breathed There was never sword unsheathed, And the fires he lighted flickered out and died.

Then terribly rose Satan, and he darkened Earth afar, Till he came on cunning Dives where the money-changers are; And he saw men pledge their gear For the gold that buys the spear, And the helmet and the habergeon of war.

Yea to Dives came the Persian and the Syrian and the Mede-- And their hearts were nothing altered, nor their cunning nor their greed-- And they pledged their flocks and farms For the king-compelling arms, And Dives lent according to their need.

Then Satan said to Dives:--’Return again with me, ‘Who hast broken His Commandment in the day He set thee free, ‘Who grindest for thy greed, ‘Man’s belly-pinch and need; ‘And the blood of Man to filthy usury!’

Then softly answered Dives where the money-changers sit:-- ‘My refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit; ‘But behold all Earth is laid ‘In the peace which I have made, ‘And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!’

Then angrily turned Satan, and about the Seas he fled, To shake the new-sown peoples with insult, doubt, and dread; But for all the sleight he used There was never squadron loosed, And the brands he flung flew dying and fell dead.

Yet to Dives came Atlantis and the Captains of the West-- And their hates were nothing weakened nor their anger nor unrest-- And they pawned their utmost trade For the dry, decreeing blade; And Dives lent and took of them their best.

Then Satan said to Dives:--’Declare thou by The Name, ‘The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame. ‘It is known through all the Hells ‘How my peoples mocked my spells, ‘And my faithless Kings denied me ere I came.’

Then answered cunning Dives: ‘Do not gold and hate abide ‘At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside? ‘With gold and fear and hate ‘I have harnessed state to state, ‘And with hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.

‘For hate men seek a weapon, for fear they seek a shield-- ‘Keener blades and broader targes than their frantic neighbours wield-- ‘For gold I arm their hands, ‘And for gold I buy their lands, ‘And for gold I sell their enemies the yield.

‘Their nearest foes may purchase, or their furthest friends may lease, ‘One by one from Ancient Accad to the Islands of the Seas. ‘And their covenants they make ‘For the naked iron’s sake, ‘But I--I trap them armoured into peace.

‘The flocks that Egypt pledged me to Assyria I drave, ‘And Pharaoh hath the increase of the herds that Sargon gave. ‘Not for Ashdod overthrown ‘Will the Kings destroy their own, ‘Or their peoples wake the strife they feign to brave.

‘Is not Calno like Carchemish? For the steeds of their desire ‘They have sold me seven harvests that I sell to Crowning Tyre; ‘And the Tyrian sweeps the plains ‘With a thousand hired wains, ‘And the Cities keep the peace and--share the hire.

‘Hast thou seen the pride of Moab? For the swords about his path, ‘His bond is to Philistia, in half of all he hath. ‘And he dare not draw the sword ‘Till Gaza give the word, ‘And he show release from Askalon and Gath.

‘Wilt thou call again thy peoples, wilt thou craze anew thy Kings? ‘Lo! my lightnings pass before thee, and their whistling servant brings, ‘Ere the drowsy street hath stirred-- ‘Every masked and midnight word, ‘And the nations break their fast upon these things.

‘So I make a jest of Wonder, and a mock of Time and Space, ‘The roofless Seas an hostel, and the Earth a market-place, ‘Where the anxious traders know ‘Each is surety for his foe, ‘And none may thrive without his fellows’ grace.