GORDON’S DEATH TOO SADLY FULFILLED.

Kumara Times, Issue 2685, 30 April 1885, Page 2

GORDON’S DEATH TOO SADLY FULFILLED.

The following lines were sent in competition for the best parody on the “Burial of Sir Joohn Moore” in the “Truth” (magazine), on 31st July, 1884 The writer probably little thought at the time how terribly his words would be fulfilled :

Not a drum was heard, not a martial note, As our Gordon to Khartoum was hurried; But into the desert our hero we shot And there in the desert he’s buried.

No useful soldiers were with him sent, Neither horse-man nor foot-man we found him; But alone on a camel our warrior went With the foe and the desert all round him.

Few and short were the prayers he made, Not a word of complaint or of sorrow • But we coldly declined to give him our aid, And told him to wait till “ to-morrow!”

And he thought, as he lay on his anxious bed, P ll the foe-threatened city defended ; Tis plain that the men who are over my head Have ideas I’ve not quite comprehended.”

inen talk of his frantic ways, Because life and wealth he nought reckons; But little he recks of their blame or their praise, And goes straight where his own honor beckons.

Not half of his heavy task is done, That of ** rescuing and retiring ” He will not retire, for he has rescued none, And thousands upon him are firing.

Slowly and sadly I lay my pen down, Tis a mean and a pitiful story ; God grant we mayn’t have to carve on his stone, “ England left him alone in his glory,”