Graspan
This poem was written by a young Australian, M Grover, on 25 November 1899.
I killed a man at Graspan
I killed him fair in a fight
And the Empire’s poets and the Empire’s priests
Swear blind I acted right
The Empire’s poets and the Empire’s priests
Make out my deed was fine
But they can’t stop the eyes of the man I killed
From starin’ into mine
I killed a man at Graspan
Maybe I killed a score
But this one wasn’t a chance-shot home
From a thousand yards or more
I fired at him when he’d got no show
We were only a pace apart
With the cordite scorchin’ his old worn coat
As the bullet drilled his heart
I killed a man at Graspan
I killed him fightin’ fair
We came on each other face to face
An’ we went at it then and there
Mine was the trigger that shifted first
His was the life that sped
An’ a man I’d never had a quarrel with
Was spread on the boulders dead
I killed a man at Graspan
I watched him squirmin’ still
He raised his eyes, an’ they met with mine
An’ there they’re starin’ still
Cut of my brother Tom, he looked
Hardly more ’n a kid
An’ Christ! he was stiffenin’ at my feet
Because of the thing I did
I killed a man at Graspan
I told the camp that night
An’ of all the lies that I ever told
That was the poorest skit
I swore I was proud of my hand-to-hand
An’ the Boer I’d chanced to pot
An’ all the time I’d ha’ given my eyes
To never ha’ fired that shot
I killed a man at Graspan
An hour ago about
For there he lies with his starin’ eyes
An’ his blood still tricklin’ out.
I know it was either him or me
I know that I killed him fair
But all the same, wherever I look
The man that I killed is there
I killed a man at Graspan
My first an’ God! my last
Harder to dodge than my bullet is
The look that his dead eyes cast
If the Empire asks for me later on
It’ll ask for me in vain
Before I reach to my bandolier
To fire on a man again
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