I. In South Africa <br /> <br />Over the lonesome African plain <br />The stars look down, like eyes of the slain. <br /> <br />A bumping ride across gullies and ruts, <br />Now a grumble and now a jest, <br />A bit of profanity jolted out, <br />--Whist! <br />Into a hornet's nest! <br />Curse on the scout! <br />Long-bearded Boers rising out of the rocks, <br />Rocks that already are crimson-splashed, <br />Ping-ping of bullets, stabbings and cuts, <br />As if hell hurtled and hissed, <br />--Then, muffling the shocks, <br />A sting in the breast, <br />A mist, <br />A woman's face down the darkness flashed, <br />Rest. <br /> <br />All as before, save for still forms spread <br />Under the boulders dripping red. <br /> <br />Over the lonesome African plain <br />The stars look down, like eyes of the slain. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />II. In the Philippines <br /> <br />Silvery rice-fields whisper wide <br />How for home and freedom their owners died. <br /> <br />We've set the torch to their bamboo town, <br />And out they come in a scampering rush, <br />Little brown men with spears. <br />Shoot! <br />Down they go in a crush, <br />Sickening smears, <br />Hideous writhing huddles and heaps <br />Under the palms and the mango-trees. <br />More, still more! Shoot 'em down <br />Like brown jack-rabbits that scoot <br />With comical leaps <br />Out of the brush. <br />No loot? <br />No prisoners, then. As for these -- <br />Hush! <br /> <br />The flag that dreamed of delivering <br />Shudders and droops like a broken wing. <br /> <br />Silvery rice-felds whisper wide <br />How for home and freedom their owners died.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pity-of-it-the/
