The wild ass of the desert knows,By inborn knowledge, friends from foes.The tame ass of the village browsesContentedly between the houses.He has no foes, he has no friends,He toils and eats until he ends. But this time, Fate, on grim jokes bent,A wild ass to the village sent.Oh, what a tempest shook the village,‘Twas worse […]

“A beast with horns that rend and goreMy army rushes through the world;The white plumes flutter in the fore,Like mists before a tempest whirled;The roaring sea when storms are strongIs not so fierce, the lion’s wrathIs tame when swells the battle-songThat frights the clouds above my path! “My beaten shields to thunder thrill,My spears like […]

“Take Sin’s empty goblet, fling itHurtling from some sheer cliff’s height,Winds will bear it up and wing itBack to thee in devious flight.Smash it against the rocks–before theeLaming fragments strew thy path.Swamp it deep–the waves restore theeWhat thou gav’st them, brimmed with wrath.” SHAGBAG’S Soliloquy on the Boomerang. Night had fallen, although the red glow […]

“No ghosts, they say.What is a ghost?–Nay, what are thoughts and stars and winds?They cannot tell–they show at mostThose formal swathes the pedant bindsAcross clear eyes, the while he plugsThe apertures of liberal lugs.” SHAGBAG on Dogmatism. I. I had been for two days endeavouring to frame a workable quarantine scheme in respect of an […]

“The great witch-doctor has come, and allSit trembling with cold and fearAs they list to the words from his lips that fall,–The words all shrink to hear.Lo! look at the seer as he whirls and leapsThe awestruck circle within,Where each one shudders, and silence keepsAs he thinks of the untold sin. “On his head is […]

“Fate leadeth through the garden shewsThe trees of Knowledge, Death, and Life;On this, the wholesome apple grows,–On that, fair fruit with poison rife.Yet sometimes apples deadly be.Whilst poison-fruits may nourish thee.” SHAGBAG’S Advice to Beginners. I. THIS is how it all happened. They met at the canteen on Monday morning at eight o’clock–Jim Gubo, the […]

The darksome cave they enter, where they find That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullen mind. /The Faerie Queene./ When Corporal Francis Dollond and Trooper James Franks, of the Natal Mounted Police, overstayed their ten days’ leave of absence from the camp on the Upper Tugela, in the […]