Gert Strydom
To a Queen (in answer to Alfred Lord Tennyson) (pastiche)
(with apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson)
Tempered, complicated – O you that bold
send armies from your office to roam the earth
spoiled by charms, power from birth
your deception has been told since the kings of old.
Victoria, - from your royal face,
from your lips to your brow
snobbishness did flow,
without grace, you treated my people base.
And should your weakness, be reported everywhere,
in gossip and jokes in your fallen empire that declines with time
then let this verse, this rhyme
tell of the worthlessness and how without care,
Then – your soldiers made mistakes,
and in a wild march to scorch the earth, women and children did fall
while you sat enthroned behind a palace-wall
while under trampling boots, canon fire the earth shakes –
Take, Madam, these accusations along,
for from your faults my people was buried in dust,
while Englishmen were heathen they could not trust,
your mindlessness, at a time flowed strong,
And as a ruler spoiling blood
you will have a price to pay in the last day!
May children of my nation’s children say:
“She robbed our parents from liberty, property and food.”
“Her court was impure, her life unclean;
God unleash your power against every vile purpose,
let Your eternal judgment in its reckoning close
against Victoria’s descendants, against the queen;”
“And to the men who at her councils met
who knew when to rape, pillage and take
let You of them a example make,
them who bounded freedom, abusing wider yet”
“By shaping unwanted, unjust decree after decree
which made the innocents blood spill
who exercised their own will
and forever cursed Victoria and they will be.”
[References: “To The Queen: Revered, beloved – O you that hold” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. This poem is written in remembrance of the twenty thousand (some figures are as high as thirty five thousand) innocent white Afrikaner women and children that died in British concentration camps in South Africa, after their farms and houses were scorched by the British in the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa, which includes a great grandmother of mine. For a clear picture of these atrocities read my epic poem “Through the eyes of a field coronet” which is based on the eyewitness account of field coronet (Captain) JJ Potgieter.]
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