Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
Over the far-off veldt, 
Where the shadows lengthening lie, 
And clouds are massing darkly, 
Do but the wild birds cry ? 
In many a home Love is waiting, 
Yearning with tight-claspt hands, 
For news of the far-off fighting 
Of our men with the Boer bands, 
My heart it is sore within me, 
What is passing there over the sea, 
Where my five brave lads are fighting, 
Will they ever come back to me ? 
The newsboys cry in the darkness, 
“ Two of our Regiments lost ! ” 
I strained my ears, so deaf to hear, 
I wondered who paid the cost. 
I am blind, I crept to the office, 
My daughter she led the way, 
I wonder how I ever won home ; 
Two were slain on Glencoe’s day ! 
Two sons taken, three sons are left, 
They tell me three are fighting still — 
But even now I may be bereft. 
Oh ! my youngest, my drummer-boy, 
What was it I saw shine ? 
My eyes are dim, I could not see his face — 
One of a thin red line — 
Mothers, whose sons are safe at home, 
Wives, whose husbands are with you yet, 
Remember those who have given their all 
For Crown and country and are bereft. 
It seems so curious to remember that it is Summer, and 
very hot Summer, away out there, and the blood-stained 
veldts yonder are covered with flowers, dear little Pimpernels, 
Ox-eye Daisies, blue starry Speedwell and tiny Orchids. 
There are White Lilies too, and Red Lilies like spots of blood, 
Heaths, and starry Cinerarias, while the frost lies late on our 
garden-beds and a few Violets are all I can find, with a 
miserable pinched China-rosebud or two. I hear the 
streets of Pretoria are bounded by Rose-hedges in bloom 
nearly all the year round, and on nearly every Boer’s 
verandah, or stoep as he calls it, great clumps of Gardenia, 
called Keitje perring , are raised in tubs, while railway 
cuttings are often thick with Arum Lilies— a Pig Lilies ” as 
the Afrikanders call them, which, indeed, are to be seen 
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