 | Pleasant Odes |  |
49
Sir Redvers Buller.
51
I.
My dear General Sir Redvers Henry
Buller, P.C., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., V.C.,—
When you see these touching lines
You will probably ejaculate:
“Et Tu(gela), Brute!”
Yet be not perturbed,
For there is precious little Brutus about me:
In other words, I am neither an orator nor an assassin,
But merely a poet
Of 4.7 calibre,
Like our mutual friend
Mr. Gosse.
52
II.
Oftentimes during the present war, dear General,Have I thought that there must be a sort of affinity between your destiny and my destiny,
And this chiefly because
Retirement has always been a salient feature of my career.
Before I made myself master of Fleet Street
I was something in Surrey:
To establish myself on the hither side of the Thames
(Where most of the truly great newspapers are published)
Became a passion with me:
I tried all the drifts,
Including Blackfriars, Waterloo, Hungerford, and Westminster,
And every time (save the last time)
I found myself compelled to fall back upon my base,
Which I did in good order
And without the loss of a pound of stores.
Your last time of crossing the Tugela, dear General,
Came in due time,
Even as came my last time of crossing the Thames.
53
III.
And as for kopjes,You are more or less done with them:
Albeit, there is no kopje in all South Africa
Which is more acclivitous or fearfully fortified
Than a kopje known to myself and our mutual friend Mr. Gosse
As Parnassus;
Mr. Gosse and I
Have been storming Parnassus
Quite ten years—
And we are only half-way up, even now.
54
IV.
Well, my dear General,Drake, he was a Devon man,
And so are you:
I feel that I ought to have been a Devon man, too,
And then there would have been three of us.
As it is, let me tell you frankly
That I have ever had faith in you;
I believed all along that you would relieve Lady-smith
In a thoroughly neat, able, and satisfactory manner;
I believed you had keys enough to fit any amount of locks,
And I believed you would put the right key into the right lock sooner or later:
Love laughs at locksmiths,
So in the end did Buller—
Whereupon we made a new proverb,
To wit:—
Buller laughs at Ladysmiths—
Which was, I frankly admit, rather clumsy of us.
55
V.
And nowAll that remains to be done
Is to create a new lord:
“Lord Buller who banged 'em”
Would sound very pretty,
Wouldn't it, now?
Ah, my dear General,
Al sal recht komen;
Be of good heart!
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