- Take up the black man's burden! child of an alien
blood,
- Drawer of Albu's water and hewer of Albu's
wood,
- From the shores of the blue Zambesi to the foam of
the further end
- They need the sweat of the black man's brow for
the white man's dividend.
-
- By the dread of the Yellow Peril, by the slang of
the Seventh Sea,
- By the godly cant and the royal rant of the race
that set you free,
- Wherever the red gold glitters, wherever the
diamond shines,
- Go forth, upon compulsion, and labour in the
mines.
-
- The winds of the West have heard it, the stars of
the South replied,
- When the Lords of the Outer Marches went forth on
a fruitless ride,
- That the son of the swarthy Kaffir must wake from
an idle sleep
- When the lone grey Mother calls for toil, and the
Lord has made it cheap.
-
- Foster-sons of the Empire, wards of the baked
Karoo,
- This is the law the Mother makes and her sword
shall prove it true:
- "Wherever the red gold glitters, wherever the
diamond shines,
- Take up the black man's burden and labour in the
mines."
|