Page:Songs of the Road Doyle.djvu/63

Rh 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.