KHARTOUM.
By the old Egyptian river, on the shore Is a white-walled city built by men of yore : There, amid the desert sands, like a monument it stands, With a bloodstain on its memory evermore.
There's a palace roof in Khartoum, where at bay Chafed a hero, as he gnawed his heart away : Whence he heard the jackal cry, and saw armies in the sky : "Come they then, at last, the rescuers I Is it they ? "
Oh, that morning as the light began to grow, When the cruel East all crimson was aglow ; When with shout and shot and flame like a hurricane they came, The innumerable spearmen of the foe !
Oh, that evening shout of triumph ten years on, When the bloody field a deeper crimson shone When, amid the Dervish dead, 'twas an English soldier said, "Such our vengeance for the hero that is gone." And yet nobler shout of triumph and more sweet, When, the peaceful river rolling at our feet, The last fetter of the slave shall lie broken at his grave, And the day of Gordon's vengeance be complete !
So we move on, now in gladness, now in gloom, And a hero oft is greatest in his doom ; And to Englishmen for ever shall that old Egyptian river, Be the glory still of Gordon, and his tomb. A. G. B.
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