Classic Poem

Booming, booming, slowly booming; funeral dirges mouthed by cannon.
Ah, the Modder stream lies sullen; ne'er a movement stirs its bed.
O'er the veldt the darkness broodeth; scarce a shadow knows its image,
For the stars have veiled their faces, paying homage to the dead.

O, the veldt is drear and lonely and the graves have lost their number.
Sleep, remotest sons of Empire, joined in Death's imperial rest:
Hear a murmur, borne on sea-wave, speaking sorrow that ye slumber
Where the billows moan between you and your comrades of the West.

Booming, booming, slowly booming; war's grim requiem to the sleeper
Flung in tones of wrath majestic, speaking death notes in its rhyme.
There's a grave beneath the grasses but a heart is buried deeper;
And our lady bows in sadness with a grief that is sublime.
There's a grave without a garland save a lonesome wreath of sorrow.
There's a hand that fain would fling a kindly token at its head.
But to-day is wreathed a garland which shall burn throughout the morrow
With the silent fires of maple in the memory of her dead.