Bronze Statue in the Park

Men and women in their finery,Shopkeepers, children, even the workersBound to the mills like bees to the hiveWould stop, I think, and pay tributeTo the racy, romantic figure cast in bronze.Raised on his plinth in a soot-covered ageGilded in gold, he still stands, proud and sure,Staring into the distance as the young menWho once would surely stand in wonder andStare at the immense veldt beneath a southern sky.With his rifle, bandolier and bush hatHe seems strangely more modern than theYoung men who were butchered in theImmense killing fields of Flanders.

Beneath his gaze, twenty eight namesDecorate the plaque - northern names I know.I wonder though why was Private Walker,A New South Wales Bushman, dying with the rest?I guess he would have felt more at home onThe veldt than his mates who only knewRivers running rich with filth and a forestOf chimneys belching smokeStaining their world funereal- black.We cannot doubt though that they had their funIn their own way in their own timeAnd dealt with the whirling worldAs best they could -But distinctions died when they all died:Killed and buried and left for ever – to rotIn a foreign field which was never England.

And now, when time has buried the Boer War,Men and women pass the statue in the parkAnd grace it, at best, with a glance.