The Song Of The Dead

Follow after--we are waiting, by the trails that we lost, For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.]

Hear now the Song of the Dead--in the North by the torn berg-edges-- They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. Song of the Dead in the South--in the sun by their skeleton horses, Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East--in the heat-rotted jungle hollows, Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof--in the brake of the buffalo-wallows. Song of the Dead in the West--in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them, Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-mound they made them; Hear now the Song of the Dead!