THE BALLAD OF BOH DA THONE This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone, Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold: His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold, And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak He crucified noble, he sacrificed mean, While over the water the papers cried, "The patriot fights for his countryside!" 1 Value Payable Parcels Post: in which the Government collects the money for the sender. But little they cared for the Native Press, The worn white soldiers in Khaki dress, Who tramped through the jungle and camped in the byre, Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire, Who gave up their lives, at the Queen's Command, For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land. Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da Thone And his was a Company, seventy strong, There were lads from Galway and Louth and Meath Who went to their death with a joke in their teeth, And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zeal But ever a blight on their labours lay, Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends, The word of a scout-a march by night A rush through the mist-a scattering fight A volley from cover-a corpse in the clearing— The flare of a village-the tally of slain— They cursed their luck, as the Irish will, They buried their dead, they bolted their beef, Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece," men said, "When Crook and his darlings come back with the head." They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain He doubled and broke for the hills again: They had crippled his power for rapine and raid, And at last, they came, when the Day Star tired, A black cross blistered the Morning-gold, The wind of the dawn went merrily past, The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast. And out of the grass, on a sudden, broke And Captain O'Neil of the Black Tyrone (Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wire Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.) The shot-wound festered-as shot-wounds may In a steaming barrack at Mandalay. The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore, "I'd like to be after the Boh once more!" The fever held him-the Captain said, The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred, He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank, He thought of his wife and his High School son, He thought-but abandoned the thought—of a gun. His sleep was broken by visions dread Of a shining Boh with a silver head. He kept his counsel and went his way, And swindled the cartmen of half their pay. And the months went on, as the worst must do, And the Boh returned to the raid anew. But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife, And in far Simoorie had taken a wife. And she was a damsel of delicate mould, And little she knew the arms that embraced And little she knew that the loving lips And the eye that lit at her lightest breath (For these be matters a man would hide, As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.) And little the Captain thought of the past, But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road, |