University of Virginia Library

HAPPY are our dead that on the veldt are sleeping,
Our dear-belovéd dead, that died for England's sake!
They weary not, as we who watch and wake,
To follow on the war-tide's ebb and flow,
The fluctuant fight against the faithless foe,
Nor hear the widows and the orphans weeping.
Upon their graves the shadows come and go;
Their quiet sleep no battle-thunders break,
No shouts of jubilance, no wails of woe:
Their seed of sacrifice and duty shed
Upon the embattled field and with the red
Of their young hearts' blood watered, they lie low
And are content to sleep and wait the reaping:
They are at peace beneath the moonbeams creeping;
They feel the sunblaze not upon their head;
They shiver not beneath the winter's snow.
They need no pity; all with them is well;
O'er them the stars the eternal watch are keeping,
The refluent tides of heaven wane and swell;
The reverent skies rain softly on their bed:
Far oversea, beyond the wild waves' leaping,
They rest in peace, our well-belovéd dead.

Happy are our dead, that oversea are lying,
Our faithful dead, that fought and died to hold us true!
They do not hear the rude reviling crew,
They hearken not the venal nations vying
In slander each with each and vilifying
Of that magnanimous England who of yore
Wrought for their fathers in the front of war;
Who waded for their sakes through seas of gore,
Pouring like water forth her blood and store,—
England, with Sidney, Howard, Drake, who drew,
To free them from the fire and axe of Spain,
Her seraph-sword unconquerable, who,
With Blake and Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington,
From age to age her battle-banner on
Bearing, the braggart Bourbon overthrew
And drove his harlot-pander cohorts flying,
Who to the succour came of Europe sighing
Under the brute Republic's bloody reign,
Who loosed them from Napoleon's iron chain;
England, who heard and answered to their crying
So many a time of old and gave them bread;—
—These, who, as beasts that bite the hand which fed
And give for good, as is the churl's use, bane,
Bark at her heels like bandogs,—who, in vain
Fair arms and fairly used in loyal fight
Knowing against her archangelic might,
Catch up the dastard's weapons, filthy lying
And shameless slander, and withal adread
Lest she should turn and rend them, from afar
Hail their envenomed shafts upon her head,
Thinking to whelm her with the poisoned rain,—
Her tangled in a world-involving war;—
These at her heels who follow, fleeing, nighing,
Wolves at once fearful of the chase and fain,
Whilst she, proud Titan, scornful of replying,
Upon her path imperial of domain
Fares tireless on with her unfaltering tread,
The unsetting sun upon her radiant crest
A crown that cleaves the darkness East and West,
Nor heeds the yelping of the jackal train.
Happy are our dead, thrice happy in their dying,
In that their ears are deaf to all is said!
They sleep in peace upon the Afric plain;
No thunders stir their slumbers nor the hum
Of torrent-waters of the tropic rain:
They wait the fulness of the days to come,
When what they've sown shall gathered be for grain,
Nor hearken to the enviers decrying
The righteous cause for which they fought and bled.
They tarry for the harvest's testifying:
'Tis well with them, our well-belovéd dead.

Happy are our dead, o'er whom the grass is growing,
Our noble dead, who fought and fell for liberty!
Our England's arm who were, from oversea
Six thousand miles outstretched for the bestowing
Of life upon the sad sons of the soil,
Who braved the ambush and the battle-clash,
Hunger and thirst and death and dearth and tòil
Direr than death, to set the bondman free,
To save him from the bullet and the lash,—
Who blenched not from the bitterest undergoing,
The slave to succour and their human spoil
To rescue from the ruthless Dopper dogs,
The spawn of Holland, with the Bushman hogs
Blood-blended! Where, to all eternity,
They lie and sleep beneath the waste-winds blowing,
They neither mark the mopping and the mowing
Of the sour apes, who, to their country's shame,
For that their rivals in the seats they see
Themselves must void for incapacity,
Spit forth their spite upon our England's name,
Their native land far rather in the mire
Than themselves choosing forced to the foregoing
Of their base aims and baulked of their desire,—
Nor heed the tattling of the traitor horde,
Who, to feed full their raging vanity,
Their vile vainglorious appetites to stay
And fill their lust of hate to overflowing,
With the foul foe for England's overthrowing
Confederate, fain would blunt her conquering sword
And maim her forearm. But what matter they?
What skill such screech-owls in the imperial choir
Of England's praise, that, like a living lyre,
Circles the echoing world from East to West,
Hailing her harbinger of peace and truth,
Sword of the just and shield of the opprest,
Time-honoured temperer of wrath with ruth?
Yet, happy, happy are our dead, unknowing
The shame our own have heaped upon our head,
The tares which these have mingled with their sowing
Who died for duty at their country's hest,
Tares with their wheat which shall be harvested,
To feed the future world with bitter bread!
'Tis well they know it not; 'twould stir their rest
Untimely, ere the appointed days be sped,
The term of time fulfilled and truth's forthshowing:
'Tis well they sleep, our dear and sacred dead.

Happy are our dead, that in our hearts are living,
Our holy dead, who died to hold us true and great!
Whatever lie beyond the years in wait,
Whatever webs the future may be weaving,
Theirs shall the glory be, for theirs the giving.
'Twas they that stemmed for us the storm of hate;
'Twas they that turned for us the tides of Fate:
Ours was the wreck; but theirs was the retrieving;
They gave us all and asked for no returning,
Fought on nor looked to know the darkness burning
With the bright signs of morning or to see
The dayspring and the dawn of victory.
Enough their faith for them and the believing
That England never from her fair estate
Should fail whilst yet her lion brood should be,
Each breast a bulwark in her foremost gate,
Strong with the strength of duty for the achieving
Of the impossible by land and sea,
Each one a little England, unafraid
To face the world in arms, where England bade.
Theirs is the triumph; ours is the bereaving;
The trophy theirs; ours but the broken blade,
The bloodstained arms, for love and memory laid,
Wet with our weeping, on the narrow bed
Whereas our heroes sleep, of doubt and dread
Absolved, of sorry thought and sad conceiving.
So leave we them to rest; but, in the leaving,
Let not their perfect peace our mourning mar;
Let not our tears upon their triumph jar.
They live and shall not die! Whilst England stands
Upon the Eastern and the Western strands,
The light of virtue haloing her head,
Crowned, from the morning to the evening-red,
Queen of the Orient and the Austral lands,
The memory of their deeds shall never die:
Whilst “England liveth yet!” it shall be said,
Defying Time that maketh low and high,
This one downsetting still and that upheaving,
They shall live on with England. Far and nigh,
Their names shall shine as polestars in her sky,
Till she and all her memories are sped.
Leave them to rest; there is no need of grieving.
Sleep on in peace, our unforgotten dead!