University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
The Rhodes Memorial at Oxford

The Work of Cecil Rhodes: A Sonnet-Sequence: By Theodore Watts-Dunton
Watts-Dunton, Theodore (1832-1914)

collapse section 
The Work of Cecil Rhodes
 I. 
I The Quest is the Crown
 II. 
II Great Souls live long
  
III Clive and Rhodes
  
IV The Burial in the Granite Caves
  
V The Spirit of Africa to Rhodes
  
VI The Haunted Matoppos
  
VII Old Africa and New
  
VIII The Captains of the Past

collapse section Collapse All | Expand All expand section
previous section The Rhodes Memorial at Oxford
next section
18

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.
19

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.’
previous section The Rhodes Memorial at Oxford
next section