University of Virginia Library

The Work of Cecil Rhodes

I
The Quest is the Crown

When Rhodes lay dying on Pain's remorseless bed—
When even Death's cold wings round pillow and sheet
Wafted no coolness through the stifling heat—
When comrades whom, in glorious days, he led
Were stealing round the room with silent tread,
Watching how Pain could slay yet not defeat,—
Hopeless, yet praying for Hope to come and cheat,—
‘So little done, so much to do!’ he said.
No runner fails who sights a noble goal
And sinks uncrown'd. Did he, then, run in vain
Who gave his kin that star-belov'd domain,
From Kimberley to where the waters roll,
With sunbow-coloured spray for aureole,
Adown Victoria Falls? Ah! not in vain!

II
Great Souls live long

‘So little done,’ brave heart, ‘so much to do’!
Since first the sun and stars looked down to scan
The core of Nature's phantom-pageant, Man,
This was the cry of workers such as you;
Each strove and strove till, sudden, bright in view,
The rich fruition of the striver's plan
Shone far away beyond Life's narrowing span,—
Shone while the world was waving him adieu.
Great souls live many an eon in Man's brief years.—
To him who dreads no spite of Fate or Chance,
Yet loves this Earth, and Man, and starry spheres,
Life's swiftness is the pulse of Life's romance;
And when the footsteps fall of Death's advance
He hears the feet: he quails not, but he hears.

III
Clive and Rhodes

‘So much to do,’ brave heart, ‘so little done’?
What son of England left a work more grand?
Did that fierce trader-boy who, sword in hand,
Captured the Siren Mistress of the sun
Whom only in dreams great Alexander won?—
While India, Rhodes, from Comorin's belt of sand
To where the guardian Kashmir mountains stand,
Acclaims our Clive, your work is but begun.
For see!—for hear!—how race is trampling race
Where'er the white man's tempered breezes blow!—
Hear England saying, ‘He won a breathing space
For English lungs where skies of azure glow’—
Hear Freedom saying, ‘He gave me a brooding place
Where, 'neath the flag I love, my limbs shall grow.’

IV
The Burial in the Granite Caves

Lower the coffin while the sunlight shed
Around this craggy platform's narrow floor
Smiles on the circle of boulders, vast and hoar,
Kindling their lichen-mantles, yellow and red—
Lower the coffin to its rock-hewn bed—
Cover our wreaths with this proud flag he bore
From Orange River to the steaming shore
Where Tanganyika-waters gleam outspread.
Now, let our violets fall; he loved them well—
He loved Old England, loved her flowers, her grass,
Yea, in his dreams, he smelt her woodland smell:
Now, roll the slab above him; let the brass
On which the simple words are graven tell
Where sleeps a king whose memory shall not pass.

V
The Spirit of Africa to Rhodes

Men ask, ‘Who shaped this mausoleum here
Of Nature-builded towers and bastioned piles,
Stretching right on for half a hundred miles,
Which symbols Rhodes, for it has no compeer?’
It symbols you, they say, great pioneer—
Save where a lonely lakelet, dimpling, smiles
With purple bloom of lotus-lily isles—
‘Because 'tis stern, imperious, strong, austere.’
They ask, ‘What giant shaped these aisles of granite,
On what wild methods of what lawless planet,
Or crazy comet's mad, enormous modes?’—
No Titan built them for a Titan race:
I carved a province for your burying-place:
Africa's yearning dreams foresaw you, Rhodes.

VI
The Haunted Matoppos

Nature's siesta deepens to a swoon.
While golden-banded lizards slumber bright,
Nought breaks the stillness wrapping gorge and height
Save yonder bark from some amazed baboon;
Or is that sound a warning note that, soon,
Your alien shade will have to meet, at night,
The ‘Father of the Matabeles' Sprite’,
Who haunts these sacred caves at rise of moon?
Is it a warning from the mighty chief
Whose ghost so lately held these halls in fief
That when, to-night, he walks his burial ground
Each Nature-carven rock, each monstrous shape,
Will side with him, each stone-cut horse and ape,
Each rocky lion and fox and demon hound?

VII
Old Africa and New

Should that fierce leader come who left, they say,
‘A cloud of vultures and a cloud of smoke’
For trail behind him when his warriors broke
Upon the meek Mashonas, made for prey—
Should he come here to challenge this new sway,
To fight the shade of Rhodes whose master-stroke
Shattered the bloody Matabele yoke,
Full well we know which warrior-ghost will stay.
Full well we know, great captain, how will end
The midnight battle of the rival shades.
Full well we know that, ere the moonlight fades,
Your foe (as on that day when sole you sate
Amid the threatening chiefs in high debate)
Will be transfigured to a spectre friend.

VIII
The Captains of the Past

Brother of those who, ere our England threw
Her arms around the world, steered out to roam,
'Neath sails of Wonder, o'er the trackless foam,
I think I see them standing there with you
At azure gates within yon sky so blue,
So pure, it seems like Heaven's own sapphire dome—
Standing and gazing on your wondrous home
Where sleeps a hero's dust—the wild ‘World's View’.
I hear them saying,—those Captains of the Past,—
All of Old England's hero-pedigree,
From him who drove the Spaniard from the sea
To him who nailed his colours to the mast—
‘Pray God ye be not burying there the last
Of England's sons who keep her strong and free!’