* * *

Said Paul Leroy to Amy,
’Well, wifie, you may blame me,
For my passion overcame me,
   When he told me of his shame;
But when I saw him lying,
Dead amid a ring of dying,
Why, poor devil, I was trying
   To forget, and not to blame.

’And this locket, I unclasped it
From the fingers that still grasped it: 
He told me how he got it,
   How he stole it in a valse.’ 
And she listened leaden-hearted: 
Oh, the weary day they parted! 
For she loved him—­yes, she loved him —
For his youth and for his truth,
   And for those dying words, so false.

THE FRONTIER LINE

What marks the frontier line? 
   Thou man of India, say! 
Is it the Himalayas sheer,
The rocks and valleys of Cashmere,
Or Indus as she seeks the south
From Attoch to the fivefold mouth? 
      ‘Not that!  Not that!’
   Then answer me, I pray! 
What marks the frontier line?

What marks the frontier line? 
   Thou man of Burmah, speak! 
Is it traced from Mandalay,
And down the marches of Cathay,
From Bhamo south to Kiang-mai,
And where the buried rubies lie? 
      ‘Not that!  Not that!’
   Then tell me what I seek: 
What marks the frontier line?

What marks the frontier line? 
   Thou Africander, say! 
Is it shown by Zulu kraal,
By Drakensberg or winding Vaal,
Or where the Shire waters seek
Their outlet east at Mozambique? 
      ’Not that!  Not that! 
   There is a surer way
To mark the frontier line.’

What marks the frontier line? 
   Thou man of Egypt, tell! 
Is it traced on Luxor’s sand,
Where Karnak’s painted pillars stand,
Or where the river runs between
The Ethiop and Bishareen? 
      ’Not that!  Not that! 
   By neither stream nor well
We mark the frontier line.

’But be it east or west,
   One common sign we bear,
The tongue may change, the soil, the sky,
But where your British brothers lie,
The lonely cairn, the nameless grave,
Still fringe the flowing Saxon wave. 
      ’Tis that!  ’Tis where
   they lie—­the men who placed it there,
That marks the frontier line.’

CORPORAL DICK’S PROMOTION A BALLAD OF ’82

The Eastern day was well-nigh o’er
When, parched with thirst and travel sore,
Two of McPherson’s flanking corps
   Across the Desert were tramping. 
They had wandered off from the beaten track
And now were wearily harking back,
Ever staring round for the signal jack
   That marked their comrades camping.

The one was Corporal Robert Dick,
Bearded and burly, short and thick,
Rough of speech and in temper quick,
   A hard-faced old rapscallion. 
The other, fresh from the barrack square,
Was a raw recruit, smooth-cheeked and fair
Half grown, half drilled, with the weedy air
   Of a draft from the home battalion.