Classic Poem

My friends, let not your grief be loud:
Indeed, dear friends, 'tis not so ill;
Behold the upright head unbowed,
The righteous unforsaken still!

Here in this highly favoured spot,
By this blue sea, in this mild air,
I have secured a modest cot,
And I propose to winter there.

From hence I can survey the land
From which I fled and feel no pain;
The rolling veld, the roaring Rand,
Will never call me back again.

League upon league of spume and foam,
Of barren sea and shrieking sky,
Divide me from my ancient home.
Would I retraverse them? Not I!

The heaving ocean has for me
No charm to lure me from this shore,
I am (like Nelson) sick at sea,
And I shall never tempt it more:

My wants are few. I do not pray
For wealth and all the wrong it breeds;
My income, I am glad to say,
Amply suffices for my needs.

I saved a very decent sum
In those fat years when I controlled
My country's fortunes. None shall come
To rob me of my hoarded gold.

My high position in the past,
And my adventurous finance,
Permit me to retire at last
In comfort to the South of France.

Here will I sit me down and bask
At ease upon this heavenly coast.
What more could anybody ask?
Yes, I am luckier than most.

Poor Joubert's dead and under ground,
The doctors shake their heads at Steyn,
And worthy Botha fusses round
Asking for money — quite in vain.

Reitz and his sons fare to and fro,
Seeking some fertile patch of ground
In Madagascar. Let them go;
I shall not miss them, I 'll be bound,

De Wet makes speeches far and wide;
No one attends to what he says;
The rest no doubt are occupied
In similarly futile ways.

So they go on. And only I
Fling old ambitions quite aside,
And with sublime philosophy
Accept the goods the gods provide.

And when the south wind softly blows
I creep towards my favourite seat,
Lay back my head and dream and doze
Serenely in the noonday heat,

And feel while Milner, night and morn,
Cudgels his brains and tasks his wit,
And Chamberlain exalts his horn,
The exile has the best of it!