Chants for the Boer

Chapter 8: AS IT IS WRITTEN.

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About This Book

A collection of politically charged poems and addresses protesting an imperial military campaign and expressing solidarity with Boer farmers resisting foreign intervention. The pieces combine direct appeals and admonitions aimed at political leaders, moral critiques of expansionist policy, and vivid religious and classical imagery, while reflecting on national identity, the human cost of conflict, and the duties of conscience. Language ranges from elegiac and devotional to outraged and exhortatory.

AS IT IS WRITTEN.

The she wolf’s ruthless whelp that tare

Old Africa is dead and all

Despised; but Egypt still is fair,

Jugartha brave; and Hannibal

Still hero of the Alps and more

To-day than all red men of Rome.

Archimedes still holds his measured home;

Grim Marius his ruins as of yore,

And heart still turns to heart, as then.

Live by the sword and by the sword

Ye surely die: thus saith the Lord—

And die despised of men.