‘Then we made for the Gold Reef City, Retreating, but not in rout. They had called to us, “Quick! for pity!” And he said, “They will sally out.” They will hear us and come. “Who doubts it?” But how if they don’t, what then? Well, worry no more about it, “But fight to the death, like men.”
‘Not a soul had supped or slumbered Since the Borderland stream was cleft; But we fought, ever more outnumbered, Till we had not a cartridge left. We’re not very soft or tender, Or given to weep for woe, But it breaks one to have to s’render One’s sword to the strongest foe.
‘I suppose we were wrong, we were madmen, Still I think at the Judgment Day, When God sifts the good from the bad man, There’ll be something more to say. We were wrong, but we aren’t half sorry, And, as one of the baffled band, I would rather have had that foray Than the crushings of all the Rand.’
Wrong is it? Most wickedly wrong! That treacherous raid, some call _ride_, Of Jameson, Maxims, and rover throng; Though _noblemen_ rode by his side. They may argue, and hunt for excuses, To prove their intention was good, Common sense now it is that accuses And proclaims their intention was _loot_.
Let lawyers and statesmen ponder, To prove that their action was right; Van den Berg, MacDonald, Van Tonder, Lost their lives in the wantonest fight. When the jobbers wrote secretly, ‘help us’ ‘In our scramble for more and more gold,’ Jameson’s answer it ought to have been thus: ‘British honour I’m bound to uphold.’
There are babes in the Gold Reef City, There are boys and maidens and wives, And the cowards, that knew no pity, Imperilled those innocent lives. Had they done what their duty demanded, We would never have heard of the raid; Had but counsels of prudence commanded, Constitutional ways were their aid.
But Jameson’s band scampered forward, As hard as their horses could pelt, First eastward, then westward, then nor’ward, Meandering over the veld, Till the sons of the land they invaded With courage, the offspring of right, The usurpers with bullets persuaded They had to surrender or fight.
There was heard the dread Maxim’s rattle And thundering cannon’s loud roar, But Jameson found in this battle His match in the Transvaal Boer. I can tell you it wasn’t a trifle, That search for a hole to creep through While the Boers plied unerring the rifle, Taught the raiders to die or to do.