SONGS OF THE ROAD
51
And when asked, 'Are you a Boer.
Or a little Englishman?'
Each will answer, short and sure,
'I am a South African.'
But the father answers, chaffing,
'Africans but British too.'
And the children echo, laughing,
'Half of mother—half of you.'
It may seem a crude example,
In an isolated case,
But the story is a sample
Of the welding of the race.
So from bloodshed and from sorrow,
From the pains of yesterday,
Comes the nation of to-morrow
Broadly based and built to stay.
