Death Of An Empire; At Khartoum Poem by George Price

The death in the desert is dying again
And the soldier in red is still falling.
A thousand wild dervishes whirl round, insane,
Outnumbering all but the fallen.

And the shattered drum no longer beats,
The bugles and trumpets aren't sounding.
No union flag flies o'er these heats
No general's speeches so rousing.

And the mountains of dead, colonial scum
Lie in a field so foreign.
No-one stands, as the bullets thrum
In a field that is never England.

And no schoolboy's cry rallies the dead,
No glory for them and no fame.
And the bodies are heaped and the sands stained so red,
Oh play up boys, play this game.