Writ in Barracks

An' the gardin's fresh as rain,
An' the weeds that strewed the borders
They no longer there remain.
An' the flowers they are smilin',
For they're out of all their pain;
An' the bees they 'um for gladness —
Jerry Jordan's out again!

THE PEOPLE TO CECIL JOHN RHODES,

JULY 18, 1899

By the bond that binds the scattered folk to home,
We have come.
By the love to dear old England which you bear —
And we share,
By the knowledge of the Empire you extend —
Britain's friend! —
We are gathered, many thousand people, to
Welcome you!

We are strangers drawn together by one tie,
They and I,
Merely men who, having never met before,
Meet no more!
But a common cause has bridged the social breach,
Each to each
Has one soft word of fellowship to say,
Here to-day.

If you search among our numbers you will find
Every kind:
Dutchman, Briton, 'Africander,' and Malay
In array;
Christian, Mussulman, and he of Abram's seed —
Every creed:
With the worshippers of Sakyanumi's mud —
Mighty Budh.

But if every heart was melted, and when done
Moulded one —
If a welcome in a polyglotic tongue
Could be sung —
If one voice could speak our sentiments to-day,
We would say,
Very simply: 'We are glad that you are come —
Welcome home!'

We have followed you, and watched your noble stand
For your land.
And your triumphs and your greatly troubled hours.
Have been ours:
And our sympathetic wishes for your cause,
Have been yours:
Since the day on which you left us to go forth,
'For my North!'

We have followed you through many foreign ways,
In these days.
By the Nilus, on the Desert, new surveyed,
You have strayed:
By the Pyramids and palms of Cairo town,
Parched and brown:
By the quiet shades of Oxford, prim and green,
You have been.

In the stately city hall, in spirit we
Came to see
The cheering thousands testify belief,
In their Chief.
In the regal courts of Potsdam, at your side
We were tied,
By the tighter bond than kinship ever drew —
We and you!

If our hearts in concord melted and were run
Into one!
If a welcome in a polyglotic tongue.
Could be sung:
If two words could voice our sentiments to-day,
We would say —
Very simply, being glad that you are come —
'Welcome home!'

WHEN LONDON CALLS!

There's a voice that calls to Mecca, there's a voice that calls to Rome.
(O the Holiest of Holies! O the Temple and the Shrine!)
There's a bleating from a pasture, and it calls a wand'rer home.
(O the friskings of the yearlings, and the lowing of the kine!)
There's a penetrating whisper that can rise above the gale
From the cot of thatch and plaster, from the oaken-gabled hall,
From the limpid lake of silver in the verdant velvet vale,
From the shamrock and the heather,
Hear the call!

There's a voice that calls the waster, when the doors of home are shut.
(O the voice of club and chamber, and the arc-light burning blue!)
There's a voice that calls the trooper in his daub and wattle hut.
(O the midnight cabs that rattle from the Strand to Waterloo!)