Christmas In Laager

CHISTMAS IN LAAGER

PRETORIA, TRANSVAAL, DECEMBER 25TH, 1880

I

How would you like it, I ask you to ponder,
People of England, at home at your ease?
Christmas approaches – oh, tell it with wonder ! –
The mud in our tents rising up to our knees,
Our canvas roofs dripping, our footsteps oft tripping,
‘Mid the pegs and the cords that secure our marquees,
Whilst children are squalling, and commandants bawling,
A babel of sounds from an unpleasant squeeze.

II

In huts we are huddled in glorious confusion,
‘Midst waggons we tumble, and roll ‘neath the wheels,
A stable we’d deem now palatial profusion,
A kennel a boudoir where luxury steals.
The lights ordered out by the law that is martial,
We grope in the dark for our comfortless beds,
And coiling around ‘neath a clothing but partial,
We envy the cats out at home on the leads.

III

We the hear the hoarse voice of the sentry outspeaking,
As he loudly proclaims his ‘Halt ! who goes there ?’
And we wish in our hearts that the daylight was breaking,
And with it were broken this wretched Boer scare.
Christmas! great heaven! whose memories pleasant
Well up in the mind-spring, and days that are flown,
Come back as a contrast to mark the dim present,
And add to the horrors we now call our own.

IV

We think of the boughs of the ivy and holly,
Then gaze on the muddled confusion around ;
We call back the friends who were merry and jolly,
And the yells of an infant responsively sound.
We pity you, madam, excusing the failing
Of temper you show under comfortless odds ;
You well may be pardoned if, anger prevailing,
You question this world a creation of God’s.

V

The horses they stamp, and the oxen are roaring,
The wind whistles cold through the rent canvas roof,
The lightning oft flashes, the rain is downpouring,
And angelic temper is put to the proof.
The road is a swamp, the ‘Veld’ is an ocean,
The sluits rush in torrents, no shelter is sure,
And Christmas so ‘merry’, I’ve formed a grim notion
Will be cursed by the many who grin and endure.

VI

Christmas! the feast that is loved by the olden ;
Christmas! so longed for by those that are young ;
Christmas! whose memories are happy and golden ;
Christmas! whose praises so oft have been sung ;
Christmas! whose beef and plum-puddings remind us
Of youthful stomachics, of draught and of pill ;
Christmas! whose joys and festivities blind us
To the certain dismay we shall feel at the bill.

VII

Christmas! whose message brought ‘peace and goodwill’ here ;
Christmas! whose berries hand bright in the hall ;
Christmas! whose carols remain to us still dear,
Though Africa’s sunshine dispels their ice-pall ;
Christmas! the time of the sweetest sweethearting ;
Christmas! when friendships all firmer may grow.
Christmas! the hour of kind meeting and parting –
This, this was the Christmas our memories know.

* * * * * * *

VIII

Christmas! our women all anxiously dreading ;
Christmas! our men with their arms in their hands ;
Christmas! our children now curiously treading
The ‘laager’ constructed by soldierly bands ;
Christmas! awaiting the call to the battle ;
Christmas! bedraggles and dabbled in mud ;
Christmas! enlivened by musketry’s rattle ;
Christmas ! all stained by our countrymen’s blood.

Reference

Written by Charles Henry Du Val while alone in South Africa with his travelling show team, and caught up in the Siege of Pretoria, the poem appeared in his book With a Show through Southern Africa and Personal Reminiscences of the Transvaal War 1884 (one-volume Popular Edition) at pages 186-188.

With its steady beat and skillful internal rhymes, it shows Charley's complete command of rhythm and scansion, and his power to depict a moving story in verse.