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A CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY; CHRISTMAS-EVE 1899, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: South of the line, inland from far durban
Last Line: But tarries yet the cause for which he died.'
Subject(s): Boer War; Christmas; South African War; Nativity, The


SOUTH of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: 'I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking "Anno Domini" to the years?
Near twenty-hundred liveried thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died.'





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