 | Ballads of the War |  |
94
To General Sir George White
Brave, knightly, tender-hearted, tried and true,
White, with your twenty thousand cooped up close,
Shut in by mountains belching fire—by foes
Outflanked, outnumbered, while the four moons grew
And waned with pitiless look of death, you knew
How thrice to the height of Heaven our good hope rose,
How thrice it fell—with sore increase of woes,
While famine more than shell-fire claimed its due.
White, with your twenty thousand cooped up close,
Shut in by mountains belching fire—by foes
Outflanked, outnumbered, while the four moons grew
And waned with pitiless look of death, you knew
How thrice to the height of Heaven our good hope rose,
How thrice it fell—with sore increase of woes,
While famine more than shell-fire claimed its due.
Yet with your inexhaustible gift of grace
By fireless hearths you kept our hearts aflame,
And tangled in that net by Boerish wiles,
Held your beleaguered ring of fourteen miles
Inviolate; yea, in Death's own dwelling-place
Nursed Life, till Life thro' Death victorious came.
By fireless hearths you kept our hearts aflame,
And tangled in that net by Boerish wiles,
Held your beleaguered ring of fourteen miles
Inviolate; yea, in Death's own dwelling-place
Nursed Life, till Life thro' Death victorious came.
| Ballads of the War | |