THE
POETRY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Ballantyne Press
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
THE POETRY
OF
S O U T H A F R I C A
COLLECTED AND ARRANGED
BY
A. WILMOT
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CAPE TOWN
J. C. JUTA & CO.
1887
PREFACE.
THIS collection of verse has been made from various sources in the Cape Colony, Natal, and the Transvaal, and it is a matter of regret that many pieces of interest have been omitted owing to the difficulty of obtaining copies. Also as most colonists in South Africa understand the Dutch language “as spoken there,” it could be wished that certain well-known productions in the “Boerentaal” could have been preserved in these pages. Some of the inimitable “versions” of Reitz,—for instance, his rendering of “Tam o’ Shanter” and “The Maid of Athens,” and some others which have appeared from time to time, we believe, in one of the Cape journals, ought not to be forgotten.
We have received from Natal, since this volume was “in the press,” some lines by the late T. Fannin, who used in the olden days to sing his own rhymes in right good style. We do not apologise to our readers for giving these in their entirety.
“THE SMOUSE.”
“I’m a Smouse, I’m a Smouse in the wilderness wide—
The veld is my home, and the wagon’s my pride;
The crack of my “voerslag,” shall sound o’er the lea.
I’m a Smouse, I’m a Smouse, and the trader is free!
I heed not the Governor, I fear not his law,
I care not for ‘civilisation’ (?) one straw—
And ne’er to ‘Ompanda’—‘Umgazis’ I’ll throw,
While my arm carries fist, or my foot bears a toe!
‘Trek,’ ‘trek,’ ply the whip,—touch the fore oxen’s skin,
I’ll warrant we’ll ‘go it’ through thick and through thin—
‘Loop! loop ye oud skellums! ot Vigmaan trek jy.’
I’m a Smouse, I’m a Smouse, and the trader is free!
They may talk of quick going by mail or by rail—
What matters? our wagon creeps on like a snail;
What to ‘her’ is the steam-engine’s whistle and din?
We have time all before, and the ‘prog’ all within—
The snows of Kathlamba our progress can’t stay;
We mount to its summit, and travel away,
Or go we by Biggarsberg—wagon upset,
The tent lies in atoms, the stuff is all wet—
Never mind, that won’t hurt us—we’ll soon get it dry.
But ho! there go Elands—saddle up, boys! mount! fly!
Load your rifles, give chase as they bound o’er the lea—
I’m a Smouse, I’m a Smouse, and the trader is free!
I’m alone—I’m alone, and ’tis night on the plain—
And I think, as I lie, of old England again;
The jackal cries round me, the wolf quits his lair,
And the roar of the lion resounds through the air—
‘Alamagtig!’ cries Jansi—‘Ma-wo!’ cries Kewitt;
The cattle stand trembling—the Smouse on his feet.
My ‘Lancaster’ rings, while the brute gives a bound,
And the king of the desert lies dead on the ground!
Hurrah! then, what care I for king or for prince?
My horse and my gun are my pride and defence;
The town for the coward—the desert for me!
I’m a Smouse, I’m a Smouse, and the trader is free!”
All is changed since these lines were written, and since Pringle (the “father” of South African verse) “sang” amid the wild surroundings of his home. The whistle of the locomotive has taken the place of the shrill cry of the Kaffir. The lion has retired from business. The “big game” which used to cover the plains beyond the Drachensberg has gone, never to return; and the wandering trader has to pay taxes, and is no longer in need of a gun. The railway from Delagoa Bay to the Portuguese border is almost completed. Soon “excursions to Ophir” will be advertised, and the romance of the “Dark Continent” will be dead! There is little time for thought or rest in a country which can show a town risen up, as by Aladdin’s power, in a few short months, holding five thousand people, all gathered together for one object—gold.[1] Still, and in spite of all this, we hope our modest volume may not be wholly neglected, but will find a welcome in many a home. There must be “intervals for refreshment,” however transient, both for body and mind, even in a world where the “go as you please” race for wealth engages everybody, and we trust that many colonists will find something in these pages to satisfy their tastes even if it be only a reminder of the days when their fathers were young, and ventured over the sea to make for themselves homes in untrodden wilds.
B.
CONTENTS.
POEMS.
THE EMIGRANTS.
... The sire has told
The heart-struck group of dark disaster nigh:
Their old paternal home must now be sold,
And that last relic of ancestry
Resigned to strangers. Long and strenuously
He strove to stem the flood’s o’erwhelming mass;
But still some fresh unseen calamity
Burst like a foaming billow—till, alas!
No hope remains that this their sorest grief may pass.
“Yet be not thus dismayed. Our altered lot
He that ordains will brace us to endure.
This changeful world affords no sheltered spot,
Where man may count his frail possessions sure:
Our better birthright, noble, precious, pure,
May well console for earthly treasures marred,—
Treasures, alas! how vain and insecure,
Where none from rust and robbery can guard:
The wise man looks to heaven alone for his reward.”
The Christian father thus. But whither now
Shall the bewildered band their course direct?
What home shall shield that matron’s honoured brow,
And those dear pensive maids from wrong protect?
Or cheer them ’mid the world’s unkind neglect?
That world to the unfortunate so cold,
While lavish of its smiles and fair respect
Unto the proud, the prosperous, the bold;
Still shunning want and woe; still courting pomp and gold.
Shall they adopt the poor retainer’s trade,
And sue for pity from the great and proud?
No! never shall ungenerous souls upbraid
Their conduct in adversity—which bowed
But not debased them. Or, amidst the crowd,
In noisome towns shall they themselves immure,
Their wounds, their woes, their weary days to shroud
In some mean melancholy nook obscure?
No! worthier tasks await, and brighter scenes allure.
A land of climate fair and fertile soil,
Teeming with milk and wine and waving corn,
Invites from far the venturous Briton’s toil:
And thousands, long by fruitless cares foresworn,
And now across the wide Atlantic borne,
To seek new homes on Afric’s southern strand:
Better to launch with them than sink forlorn,
To vile dependence in our native land;
Better to fall in God’s than man’s unfeeling hand!
With hearts resigned they tranquilly prepare
To share the fortunes of that exile train.
And soon with many a follower, forth they fare—
High hope and courage in their hearts again:
And now, afloat upon the dark-blue main,
They gaze upon the fast-receding shore
With tearful eyes—while thus the ballad strain,
Half heard amidst the ocean’s weltering roar,
Bids farewell to the scenes they ne’er shall visit more:—
“Our native land—our native vale—
A long and last adieu!
Farewell to bonny Teviot-dale,
And Cheviot mountains blue!
“Farewell, ye hills of glorious deeds,
And streams renowned in song;
Farewell, ye blithesome braes and meads
Our hearts have loved so long.
“Farewell, ye broomy elfin knowes,
Where thyme and harebells grow!
Farewell, ye hoary haunted howes,
O’erhung with birk and sloe.
“The battle-mound, the Border-tower,
That Scotia’s annals tell;
The martyr’s grave, the lover’s bower—
To each—to all—farewell!
“Home of our hearts! our father’s home!
Land of the brave and free!
The sale is flapping on the foam
That bears us far from thee!
“We seek a wild and distant shore
Beyond the Atlantic main;
We leave thee to return no more,
Nor view thy cliffs again:
“But may dishonour blight our fame,
And quench our household fires,
When we, or ours, forget thy name,
Green Island of our Sires.
“Our native land—our native vale—
A long, a last adieu!
Farewell to bonny Teviot-dale,
And Scotland’s mountains blue.”
Thomas Pringle.
Huntschaw, Sept. 20, 1819.
THE BECHUANA BOY.
I sat at noontide in my tent,
And looked across the desert dun,
Beneath the cloudless firmament
Far gleaming in the sun,
When from the bosom of the waste
A swarthy stripling came in haste,
With foot unshod and naked limb;
And a tame springbok followed him.
With open aspect, frank yet bland,
And with a modest mien he stood,
Caressing with a gentle hand
That beast of gentle brood;
Then, meekly gazing in my face,
Said in the language of his race,
With smiling look yet pensive tone,
“Stranger—I’m in the world alone!”
“Poor boy,” I said, “thy native home
Lies far beyond the Stormberg blue:
Why hast thou left it, boy! to roam
This desolate Karroo?”
His face grew sadder while I spoke;
The smile forsook it; and he broke
Short silence with a sob-like sigh,
And told his hapless history.
“I have no home!” replied the boy;
“The Bergenaars—by night they came,
And raised their wolfish howl of joy,
While o’er our huts the flame
Resistless rushed; and aye their yell
Pealed louder as our warriors fell
In helpless heaps beneath their shot:
—One living man they left us not!
“The slaughter o’er, they gave the slain
To feast the foul-beaked birds of prey,
And with our herds across the plain
They hurried us away—
The widowed mothers and their brood.
Oft, in despair, for drink or food
We vainly cried; they heeded not,
But with sharp lash the captive smote.
“Three days we tracked that dreary wild,
Where thirst and anguish pressed us sore;
And many a mother and her child
Lay down to rise no more.
Behind us, on the desert brown,
We saw the vultures swooping down;
And heard, as the grim night was falling,
The wolf to his gorged comrade calling.
“At length was heard a river sounding
’Midst that dry and dismal land,
And, like a troop of wild deer bounding,
We hurried to its strand—
Among the maddened cattle rushing,
The crowd behind still forward pushing,
Till in the flood our limbs were drenched
And the fierce rage of thirst was quenched.
“Hoarse roaring, dark, the broad Gareep
In turbid streams was sweeping fast,
Huge sea-cows in its eddies deep
Loud snorting as we passed;
But that relentless robber clan
Right through those waters wild and wan
Drove on like sheep our wearied band:
—Some never reached the farther strand.
“All shivering from the foaming flood,
We stood upon the strangers’ ground,
When, with proud looks and gestures rude,
The white men gathered round:
And there, like cattle from the fold,
By Christians we were bought and sold,
’Midst laughter loud and looks of scorn—
And roughly from each other torn.
“My mother’s scream, so long and shrill,
My little sister’s wailing cry
(In dreams I often hear them still!),
Rose wildly to the sky.
A tiger’s heart came to me then,
And fiercely on those ruthless men
I sprang—alas! dashed on the sand
Bleeding, they bound me foot and hand.
“Away, away on prancing steeds
The stout man-stealers blithely go,
Through long low valleys fringed with reeds,
O’er mountains capped with snow
Each with his captive, far and fast;
Until yon rock-bound ridge we passed,
And distant strips of cultured soil
Bespoke the land of tears and toil.
“And tears and toil have been my lot
Since I the white-man’s thrall became,
And sorer griefs I wish forgot—
Harsh blows, and scorn, and shame!
Oh, Englishman! thou ne’er canst know
The injured bondman’s bitter woe,
When round his breast, like scorpions, cling
Black thoughts that madden while they sting!
“Yet this hard fate I might have borne,
And taught in time my soul to bend,
Had my sad yearning heart forlorn
But found a single friend:
My race extinct or far removed,
The Boer’s rough brood I could have loved;
But each to whom my bosom turned
Even like a hound the black boy spurned.
“While, friendless, thus, my master’s flocks
I tended on the upland waste,
It chanced this fawn leapt from the rocks,
By wolfish wild-dogs chased:
I rescued it, though wounded sore
And dabbled in its mother’s gore;
And nursed it in a cavern wild,
Until it loved me like a child.
“Gently I nursed it; for I thought
(Its hapless fate so like to mine)
By good Utíko[2] it was brought
To bid me not repine,—
Since in this world of wrong and ill
One creature lived that loved me still,
Although its dark and dazzling eye
Beamed not with human sympathy.
“Thus lived I, a lone orphan lad,
My task the proud Boer’s flocks to tend;
And this poor fawn was all I had
To love or call my friend;
When suddenly, with haughty look
And taunting words, that tyrant took
My playmate for his pampered boy,
Who envied me my only joy.
“High swelled my heart!—But when the star
Of midnight gleamed, I softly led
My bounding favourite forth, and far
Into the desert fled.
And here, from human kind exiled,
Three moons on roots and berries wild
I’ve fared; and braved the beasts of prey,
To ’scape from spoilers worse than they.
“But yester morn a Bushman brought
The tidings that thy tents were near;
And now with hasty foot I’ve sought
Thy presence, void of fear;
Because they say, O English chief,
Thou scornest not the captive’s grief:
Then let me serve thee, as thine own—
For I am in the world alone!”
Such was Marossi’s touching tale.
Our breasts they were not made of stone:
His words, his winning looks prevail—
We took him for “our own.”
And one, with woman’s gentle art,
Unlocked the fountains of his heart;
And love gushed forth—till he became
Her child in everything but name.
Thomas Pringle.
AFAR IN THE DESERT.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the sorrows of life the soul o’ercast,
And, sick of the Present, I cling to the past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead:
Bright visions of glory—that vanished too soon;
Day dreams—that departed ere manhood’s noon;
Attachments—by fate or by falsehood reft;
Companions of early days—lost or left;
And my native Land—whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame;
The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime;
All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time
When the feelings were young and the world was new,
Like the fresh flowers of Eden unfolding to view;
All—all now forsaken—forgotten—foregone!
And I—a lone exile remembered by none—
My high aims abandoned,—my good acts undone,—
Aweary of all that is under the sun,—
With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan,
I fly to the desert, afar from man!
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,
With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife—
The proud man’s frown, and the base man’s fear,—
The scorner’s laugh, and the sufferer’s tear,—
And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,
Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;
When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,
And my soul is sick with the bondsman’s sigh—
Oh! then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the desert alone to ride!
There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle’s speed,
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand—
The only law in the Desert Land!
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away, away, from the dwellings of men,
By the wild deer’s haunt, by the buffalo’s glen;
By valleys remote where the oribi plays,
Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest graze,
And the kùdù and eland unhunted recline
By the skirts of grey forests o’erhung with wild vine;
Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,
And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood,
And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will
In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his fill.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
O’er the brown Karroo, where the bleating cry
Of the springbok’s fawn sounds plaintively;
And the timorous quagga’s shrill whistling neigh
Is heard by the fountain at twilight grey;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,
With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;
And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,
Hieing away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer’s view
In the pathless depths of the parched Karroo.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away, away, in the wilderness vast,
Where the white man’s foot hath never passed,
And the quivered Coránna or Bechuán
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan:
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,
Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear;
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,
With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;
Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root,
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot;
And the bitter-melon, for food and drink,
Is the pilgrim’s fare by the salt lake’s brink:
A region of drought, where no river glides,
Nor rippling brook with osiered sides;
Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount,
Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,
Appears, to refresh the aching eye:
But the barren earth, and the burning sky,
And the blank horizon, round and round,
Spread—void of living sight and sound,
And here, while the night-winds round me sigh,
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit apart by the desert stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb’s cave alone,
“A still small voice” comes through the wild
(Like a father consoling his fretful child),
Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear,—
Saying—Man is distant, but God is near!
Thomas Pringle.
EVENING RAMBLES.
The sultry summer-noon is past;
And mellow evening comes at last,
With a low and languid breeze
Fanning the mimosa trees,
That cluster o’er the yellow vale,
And oft perfume the panting gale
With fragrance faint; it seems to tell
Of primrose-tufts in Scottish dell,
Peeping forth in tender spring
When the blithe lark begins to sing.
But soon, amidst our Libyan vale,
Such soothing recollections fail;
Soon we raise the eye to range
O’er prospects wild, grotesque, and strange:
Sterile mountains, rough and steep,
That bound abrupt the valley deep,
Heaving to the clear blue sky
Their ribs of granite, bare and dry,
And ridges by the torrents worn,
Thinly streaked with scraggy thorn,
Which fringes nature’s savage dress,
Yet scarce relieves her nakedness.
But where the vale winds deep below
The landscape hath a warmer glow:
There the spekboom spreads its bowers
Of light green leaves and lilac flowers;
And the aloe rears her crimson crest,
Like stately queen for gala drest;
And the bright-blossomed bean-tree shakes
Its coral tufts above the brakes,
Brilliant as the glancing plumes
Of sugar birds among its blooms,
With the deep green verdure bending
In the stream of light descending.
And now along the grassy meads,
Where the skipping reebok feeds,
Let me through the mazes rove
Of the light acacia grove;
Now while yet the honey-bee
Hums around the blossomed tree;
And the turtles softly chide,
Wooingly, on every side;
And the clucking pheasant calls
To his mate at intervals;
And the duiker at my tread
Sudden lifts his startled head,
Then dives affrighted in the brake,
Like wild duck in the reedy lake.
My wonted seat receives me now—
This cliff with myrtle-tufted brow,
Towering high o’er grove and stream,
As if to greet the parting gleam.
With shattered rocks besprinkled o’er,
Behind ascends the mountain hoar,
Whose crest o’erhangs the Bushman’s cave
(His fortress once and now his grave),
Where the grim satyr-faced baboon
Sits gibbering on the rising moon,
Or chides with hoarse and angry cry
The herdsman as he wanders by.
Spread out below in sun and shade,
The shaggy Glen lies full displayed—
Its sheltered nooks, its sylvan bowers,
Its meadows flushed with purple flowers;
And through it like a dragon spread,
I trace the river’s tortuous bed.
Lo! there the Chaldee-willow weeps
Drooping o’er the headlong steeps,
Where the torrent in his wrath
Hath rifted him a rugged path,
Like fissure cleft by earthquake’s shock,
Through mead and jungle, mound and rock.
But the swoln water’s wasteful sway,
Like tyrant’s rage, hath passed away,
And left the ravage of its course
Memorial of its frantic force.
—Now o’er its shrunk and slimy bed
Rank weeds and withered wrack are spread,
With the faint rill just oozing through,
And vanishing again from view;
Save where the guana’s glassy pool
Holds to some cliff its mirror cool,
Girt by the palmite’s leafy screen,
Or graceful rock-ash, tall and green,
Whose slender sprays above the flood
Suspend the loxia’s callow brood
In cradle-nests, with porch below,
Secure from winged or creeping foe—
Weasel or hawk or writhing snake;
Light swinging, as the breezes wake,
Like the ripe fruit we love to see
Upon the rich pomegranate tree.
But lo! the sun’s descending car
Sinks o’er Mount Dunion’s peaks afar;
And now along the dusky vale
The homeward herds and flocks I hail,
Returning from their pastures dry
Amid the stony uplands high.
First, the brown Herder with his flock
Comes winding round my hermit-rock:
His mien and gait and gesture tell,
No shepherd he from Scottish fell;
For crook the guardian gun he bears,
For plaid the sheepskin mantle wears;
Sauntering languidly along;
Nor flute has he, nor merry song,
Nor book, nor tale, nor rustic lay,
To cheer him through his listless day.
His look is dull, his soul is dark;
He feels not hope’s electric spark;
But, born the white man’s servile thrall,
Knows that he cannot lower fall.
Next the stout Neat-herd passes by,
With bolder step and blither eye;
Humming low his tuneless song,
Or whistling to the hornèd throng.
From the destroying foeman fled,—
He serves the Colonist for bread:
Yet this poor heathen Bechuan
Bears on his brow the port of man;
A naked homeless exile he—
But not debased by slavery.
Now, wizard-like, slow Twilight sails
With soundless wing adown the vales,
Waving with his shadowy rod
The owl and bat to come abroad,
With things that hate the garish sun,
To frolic now when day is done.
Now along the meadows damp
The enamoured firefly lights his lamp.
Link-boy he of woodland green
To light fair Avon’s Elfin Queen;
Here, I ween, more wont to shine
To light the thievish porcupine,
Plundering my melon-bed,—
Or villain lynx, whose stealthy tread
Rouses not the wakeful hound
As he creeps the folds around.
But lo! the night-bird’s boding scream
Breaks abrupt my twilight dream;
And warns me it is time to haste
My homeward walk across the waste,
Lest my rash step provoke the wrath
Of adder coiled upon the path,
Or tempt the lion from the wood,
That soon will prowl athirst for blood,
—Thus, murmuring my thoughtful strain,
I seek our wattled cot again.
Thomas Pringle.
Glen Lynden, 1822.
THE LION HUNT.
Mount—mount for the hunting with musket and spear!
Call our friends to the field—for the lion is near!
Call Arend and Ekhard and Groepe to the spoor;
Call Muller and Coetzer and Lucas Van Vuur.
Ride up Eildon-Cleugh, and blow loudly the bugle:
Call Slinger and Allie and Dikkop and Dugal;
And George with the Elephant-gun on his shoulder—
In a perilous pinch none is better or bolder.
In the gorge of the glen lie the bones of my steed,
And the hoof of a heifer of fatherland’s breed:
But mount, my brave boys, if our rifles prove true,
We’ll soon make the spoiler his ravages rue.
Ho! the Hottentot lads have discovered the track—
To his den in the desert we’ll follow him back;
But tighten your girths, and look well to your flints,
For heavy and fresh are the villain’s foot-prints.
Through the rough rocky kloof into grey Huntly-Glen,
Past the wild-olive clump where the wolf has his den,
By the black eagle’s rock at the foot of the fell,
We have tracked him at last to the buffalo’s well.
Now mark yonder brake where the bloodhounds are howling;
And hark that hoarse sound—like the deep thunder growling;
’Tis his lair—’tis his voice!—from your saddles alight;
He’s at bay in the brushwood preparing for fight.
Leave the horses behind—and be still every man;
Let the Mullers and Rennies advance in the van:
Keep fast in your ranks;—by the yell of yon hound,
The savage, I guess, will be out—with a bound.
He comes! the tall jungle before him loud crashing,
His mane bristled fiercely, his fiery eyes flashing;
With a roar of disdain, he leaps forth in his wrath,
To challenge the foe that dare ’leaguer his path.
He couches,—ay, now we’ll see mischief, I dread:
Quick—level your rifles—and aim at his head:
Thrust forward the spears, and unsheath every knife—
St. George! he’s upon us!—now, fire, lads, for life!
He’s wounded—but yet he’ll draw blood ere he falls—
Ha! under his paw see Bezudenhout sprawls—
Now Diederik! Christian! right in the brain
Plant each man his bullet—Hurra! he is slain!
Bezudenhout—up, man!—’tis only a scratch—
(You were always a scamp and have met with your match!)
What a glorious lion!—what sinews—what claws—
And seven feet ten from the rump to the jaws!
His hide, with the paws and the bones of his skull,
With the spoils of the leopard and buffalo bull,
We’ll send to Sir Walter—now, boys, let us dine,
And talk of our deeds o’er a flask of old wine.
Thomas Pringle.
THE LION AND THE GIRAFFE.
Wouldst thou view the lion’s den?
Search afar from haunts of men—
Where the reed-encircled rill
Oozes from the rocky hill,
By its verdure far descried
’Mid the desert brown and wide.
Close beside the sedgy brim
Couchant lurks the lion grim;
Watching till the close of day
Brings the death-devoted prey.
Heedless at the ambushed brink
The tall giraffe stoops down to drink.
Upon him straight the savage springs
With cruel joy. The desert rings
With clanging sound of desperate strife—
The prey is strong and he strives for life.
Plunging oft with frantic bound,
To shake the tyrant to the ground,
He shrieks, he rushes through the waste,
With glaring eye and headlong haste:
In vain!—the spoiler on his prize
Rides proudly—tearing as he flies.
For life—the victim’s utmost speed
Is mustered in this hour of need:
For life—for life—his giant might
He strains, and pours his soul in flight:
And mad with terror, thirst and pain,
Spurns with wild hoof the thundering plain.
’Tis vain; the thirsty sands are drinking
His streaming blood—his strength is sinking;
The victor’s fangs are in his veins—
His flanks are streaked with sanguine stains—
His panting breast in foam and gore
Is bathed—he reels—his race is o’er:
He falls—and, with convulsive throe,
Resigns his throat to the ravening foe!
—And lo! ere quivering life has fled,
The vultures, wheeling overhead,
Swoop down, to watch, in gaunt array,
Till the gorged tyrant quits his prey.
Thomas Pringle.
THE DESOLATE VALLEY.
Far up among the forest-belted mountains,
Where Winterberg, stern giant old and grey,
Looks down the subject dells, whose gleaming fountains
To wizard Kat their virgin tribute pay,
A valley opens to the noontide ray,
With green savannahs shelving to the brim
Of the swift river, sweeping on its way
To where Umtóka[3] tries to meet with him,
Like a blue serpent gliding through the acacias dim.
Round this secluded region circling rise
Are billowy wastes of mountains, wild and wide;
Upon whose grassy slopes the pilgrim spies
The gnu and quagga, by the greenwood side,
Tossing their shaggy manes in tameless pride;
Or troop of elands near some sedgy fount;
Or Kùdù fawns, that from the thicket glide.
To seek their dam upon the misty mount,
With harts, gazelles, and roes, more than the eye can count.
And as we journeyed up the pathless glen,
Flanked by romantic hills on either hand,
The boschbok oft would bound away—and then
Beside the willows, backward gazing, stand.
And where old forests darken all the land
From rocky Kalberg to the river’s brink,
The buffalo would start upon the strand,
Where, ’mid palmetto flags, he stooped to drink,
And, crashing through the brakes, to the deep jungle shrink.
Then, couched at night in hunter’s wattled sheiling,
How wildly beautiful it was to hear
The elephant his shrill réveillé pealing,
Like some far signal-trumpet on the ear!
While the broad midnight moon was shining clear,
How fearful to look forth upon the woods,
And see those stately forest-kings appear,
Emerging from their shadowy solitudes—
As if that trump had woke Earth’s old gigantic broods!
Such the majestic, melancholy scene
Which ’midst that mountain-wilderness we found;
With scarce a trace to tell where man had been,
Save the old Caffer cabins crumbling round.
Yet this lone glen (Sicāna’s ancient ground)
To nature’s savage tribes abandoned long,
Had heard, erewhile, the Gospel’s joyful sound,
And low of herds mixed with the Sabbath song.
But all is silent now. The oppressor’s hand was strong.
Now the blithe loxia hangs her pensile nest
From the wild-olive, bending o’er the rock,
Beneath whose shadow, in grave mantle drest,
The Christian pastor taught his swarthy flock.
A roofless ruin, scathed by flame and smoke,
Tells where a decent mission-chapel stood;
While the baboon with jabbering cry doth mock
The pilgrim, pausing in his pensive mood
To ask—“Why is it thus? Shall Evil baffle Good?”
Yes—for a season Satan may prevail,
And hold, as if secure, his dark domain;
The prayers of righteous men may seem to fail,
And Heaven’s glad tidings be proclaimed in vain.
But wait in faith: ere long shall spring again
The seed that seemed to perish in the ground;
And fertilised by Zion’s latter rain,
The long-parched land shall laugh, with harvests crowned,
And through those silent wastes Jehovah’s praise resound.
Look round that vale: behold the unburied bones
Of Ghona’s children withering in the blast:
The sobbing wind, that through the forest moans,
Whispers—“The spirit hath for ever passed!”
Thus, in the vale of desolation vast,
In moral death dark Afric’s myriads lie;
But the appointed day shall dawn at last,
When breathed on by a spirit from on high,
The dry bones shall awake, and shout—“Our God is nigh!”
Thomas Pringle.
THE CORANNA.
Fast by his wild resounding river
The listless Córan lingers ever;
Still drives his heifers forth to feed,
Soothed by the gorrah’s humming reed;[4]
A rover still unchecked will range,
As humour calls, or seasons change;
His tent of mats and leathern gear
All packed upon the patient steer.
’Mid all his wanderings hating toil,
He never tills the stubborn soil;
But on the milky dams relies,
And what spontaneous earth supplies.
Should some long parching droughts prevail,
And milk and bulbs and locusts fail,
He lays him down to sleep away
In languid trance the weary day;
Oft as he feels gaunt hunger’s stound,[5]
Still tightening famine’s girdle round;
Lulled by the sound of the Gareep,
Beneath the willows murmuring deep:
Till thunder-clouds surcharged with rain,
Pour verdure o’er the panting plain;
And call the famished dreamer from his trance,
To feast on milk and game, and wake the moonlight dance.
Thomas Pringle.
SONG OF THE WILD BUSHMAN.
Let the proud white man boast his flocks,
And fields of foodful grain;
My home is ’mid the mountain rocks,
The desert my domain.
I plant no herbs nor pleasant fruits,
I toil not for my cheer;
The desert yields me juicy roots,
And herds of bounding deer.
The countless springboks are my flock,
Spread o’er the unbounded plain;
The buffalo bendeth to my yoke,
The wild horse to my rein;[6]
My yoke is the quivering assegai,
My rein the tough bow-string;
My bridle curb a slender barb—
Yet it quells the forest king.
The crested adder honoureth me,
And yields at my command
His poison bag, like the honey-bee,
When I seize him on the sand.
Yea, even the wasting locust-swarm,
Which mighty nations dread,
To me nor terror brings, nor harm—
For I make of them my bread.[7]
Thus I am lord of the Desert Land,
And I will not leave my bounds,
To crouch beneath the Christian’s hand,
And kennel with his hounds:
To be a hound, and watch the flocks,
For the cruel white man’s gain—
No! the brown Serpent of the Rocks
His den doth yet retain;
And none who there his stings provokes
Shall find his poison vain!
Thomas Pringle.
THE CAPTIVE OF CAMALÚ.
O Camalú—green Camalú!
’Twas there I fed my father’s flock,
Beside the mount where cedars threw
At dawn their shadows from the rock;
There tended I my father’s flock
Along the grassy margined rills,
Or chased the bounding bontébok
With hound and spear among the hills.
Green Camalú! methinks I view
The lilies in thy meadows growing;
I see thy waters bright and blue
Beneath the pale-leaved willows flowing;
I hear along the valleys lowing,
The heifers wending to the fold,
And jocund herd-boys loudly blowing
The horn—to mimic hunters bold.
Methinks I see the umkóba tree[8]
That shades the village-chieftain’s cot;
The evening smoke curls lovingly
Above that calm and pleasant spot.
My father?—Ha!—I had forgot—
The old man rests in slumber deep:
My mother?—Ay! she answers not—
Her heart is hushed in dreamless sleep.
My brothers too—green Camalú,
Repose they by thy quiet tide?
Ay! there they sleep—where white men slew
And left them—lying side by side.
No pity had those men of pride,
They fired the huts above the dying!—
While bones bestrew that valley wide—
I wish that mine were with them lying!
I envy you by Camalú,
Ye wild harts on the woody hills;
Though tigers there their prey pursue,
And vultures slake in blood their bills.
The heart may strive in Nature’s ills,
To Nature’s common doom resigned:
Death the frail body only kills—
But thraldom brutifies the mind.
Oh, wretched fate!—heart desolate,
A captive in the spoiler’s hand,
To serve the tyrant, whom I hate—
To crouch beneath his proud command—
Upon my flesh to bear his brand—
His blows, his bitter scorn to bide!—
Would God I in my native land
Had with my slaughtered brothers died!
Ye mountains blue of Camalú,
Where once I fed my father’s flock,
Though desolation dwells with you,
And Amakósa’s heart is broke,
Yet, spite of chains these limbs that mock,
My homeless heart to you doth fly,—
As flies the wild dove to the rock,
To hide its wounded breast—and die!
Yet, ere my spirit wings its flight
Unto Death’s silent shadowy clime,
Utíko! Lord of life and light,
Who, high above the clouds of Time,
Calm sittest, where yon hosts sublime
Of stars wheel round thy bright abode,
Oh, let my cry unto thee climb,
Of every race the Father-God!
I ask not judgments from thy hand—
Destroying hail or parching drought,
Or locust swarms to waste the land,
Or pestilence, by Famine brought;
I say the prayer Jankanna[9] taught,
Who wept for Amakósa’s wrongs—
“Thy kingdom come—Thy will be wrought—
For unto Thee all power belongs.”
Thy kingdom come! Let Light and Grace
Throughout all lands in triumph go;
Till pride and strife to love give place,
And blood and tears forget to flow;
Till Europe mourn for Afric’s woe,
And o’er the deep her arms extend
To lift her where she lieth low,
And prove indeed her Christian Friend!
Thomas Pringle.
THE BROWN HUNTER’S SONG.
Under the Didima[10] lies a green dell,
Where fresh from the forest the blue waters swell;
And fast by that brook stands a yellow-wood tree
Which shelters the spot which is dearest to me.
Down by the streamlet my heifers are grazing;
In the pool of the guanas the herd-boy is gazing;
Under the shade my amana is singing—
The shade of the tree where her cradle is swinging.
When I come from the upland as daylight is fading,
Though spent with the chase, and the game for my lading,
My nerves are new-strung and my fond heart is swelling
As I gaze from the cliff on our wood-circled dwelling.
Down the steep mountain and through the brown forest,
I haste like a hart when his thirst is the sorest;
I bound o’er the swift brook that skirts the savannah,
And clasp my first-born in the arms of Amana.
Thomas Pringle.
THE BUSHMAN.
The Bushman sleeps within his black-browed den,
In the lone wilderness. Around him lie
His wife and little ones unfearingly—
For they are far away from “Christian men.”
No herds, loud lowing, call him down the glen:
He fears no foe but famine; and may try
To wear away the hot noon slumberingly;
Then rise to search for roots—and dance again.
But he shall dance no more! His secret lair,
Surrounded, echoes to the thundering gun,
And the wild shriek of anguish and despair!
He dies—yet, ere life’s ebbing sands are run,
Leaves to his sons a curse, should they be friends
With the proud “Christian men,”—for they are fiends!
Thomas Pringle.
THE CAPE OF STORMS.
O Cape of Storms! although thy front be dark,
And bleak thy naked cliffs and cheerless vales,
And perilous thy fierce and faithless gales
To staunchest mariner and stoutest bark;
And though along thy coasts with grief I mark
The servile and the slave, and him who wails
An exile’s lot—and blush to hear thy tales
Of sin and sorrow and oppression stark:—
Yet, spite of physical and moral ill,
And after all I’ve seen and suffered here,
There are strong links that bind me to thee still,
And render even thy rocks and deserts dear;
Here dwell kind hearts which time nor place can chill—
Loved kindred and congenial friends sincere.
Thomas Pringle, 1825.
THE HOTTENTOT.
Mild, melancholy, and sedate, he stands,
Tending another’s flock upon the fields,
His fathers’ once, where now the white man builds
His home, and issues forth his proud commands.
His dark eye flashes not; his listless hands
Lean on the shepherd’s staff; no more he wields
The Libyan bow—but to th’ oppressor yields
Submissively his freedom and his lands.
Has he no courage? Once he had—but, lo!
Harsh servitude hath worn him to the bone.
No enterprise? Alas! the brand, the blow,
Hath humbled him to dust—even hope is gone!
“He’s a base-hearted hound—not worth his food”—
His master cries; “he has no gratitude!”
Thomas Pringle.
THE CAFFER.
Lo! where he crouches by the Kloof’s dark side,
Eyeing the farmer’s lowing herds, afar;
Impatient watching till the evening star
Leads forth the twilight dim, that he may glide
Like panther to the prey. With freeborn pride
He scorns the herdsman, nor regards the scar
Of recent wound—but burnishes for war
His assegai and targe of buffalo hide.
He is a robber? True; it is a strife
Between the black skinned bandit and the white.
A savage?—Yes; though loth to aim at life,
Evil for evil fierce he doth requite.
A heathen?—Teach him, then, thy better creed,
Christian! if thou deserv’st that name indeed.
Thomas Pringle.
THE GHONA WIDOW’S LULLABY.
The storm hath ceased: yet still I hear
The distant thunder sounding,
And from the mountains, far and near,
The headlong torrents bounding.
The jackal shrieks upon the rocks,
The tiger wolf is howling,
The panther round the folded flocks
With stifled gurr is prowling.
But lay thee down in peace, my child,
God watcheth o’er us ’midst the wild.
I fear the Bushman is abroad—
He loves the midnight thunder;
The sheeted lightning shows the road
That leads his feet to plunder:
I’d rather meet the hooded snake
Than hear his rattling quiver,
When, like an adder, through the brake,
He glides along the river.
But, darling, hush thy heart to sleep—
The Lord our Shepherd watch doth keep.
The Kosa from Luhéri high
Looks down upon our dwelling,
And shakes the vengeful assegai,—
Unto his clansmen telling
How he, for us, by grievous wrong,
Hath lost these fertile valleys,
And boasts that now his hand is strong
To pay the debt of malice.
But sleep, my child; a mightier Arm
Shall shield thee (helpless one!) from harm.
The moon is up; a fleecy cloud
O’er heaven’s blue deep is sailing;
The stream, that lately raved so loud,
Makes now a gentle wailing.
From yonder crags, lit by the moon,
I hear a wild voice crying:
—’Tis but the harmless bear-baboon,
Unto his mates replying.
Hush—hush thy dreams, my moaning dove,
And slumber in the arms of love!
The wolf, scared by the watch-dog’s bay,
Is to the woods returning:
By his rock fortress, far away,
The Bushman’s fire is burning.
And hark! Sicána’s midnight hymn,
Along the valley swelling,
Calls us to stretch the wearied limb,
While kinsmen guard our dwelling:
Though vainly watchmen wake from sleep,
“Unless the Lord the city keep.”
At dawn we’ll seek, with songs of praise,
Our food on the savannah,
As Israel sought, in ancient days,
The heaven-descending manna;
With gladness from the fertile land
The veld-kost we will gather,
A harvest planted by the hand
Of the Almighty Father—
From thraldom who redeems our race,
To plant them in their ancient place.
Then let us calmly rest, my child,
Jehovah’s arm is round us,
The God, the Father reconciled,
In heathen gloom who found us;
Who to this heart, by sorrow broke,
His wondrous WORD revealing,
Led me, a lost sheep, to the flock,
And to the Fount of Healing.
Oh, may the Saviour-Shepherd lead
My darling where His lambs do feed!
Thomas Pringle.
THE KOSA.
The free-born Kosa still doth hold
The fields his fathers held of old;
With club and spear in jocund ranks,
Still hunts the elk by Chumi’s banks:
By Keisis meads his herds are lowing;
On Debè’s slopes his gardens glowing,
Where laughing maids at sunset roam,
To bear the juicy melons home:
And striplings from Kalunna’s wood
Bring wild grapes and the pigeon’s brood,
With fragrant hoards of honey-bee
Rifled from the hollow tree:
And herdsmen shout from rock to rock:
And through the glen the hamlets smoke;
And children gambol round the kraal,[11]
To greet their sires at evening-fall:
And matrons sweep the cabin floor,
And spread the mat beside the door,
And with dry faggots wake the flame
To dress the wearied huntsman’s game.
Bright gleams the fire: its ruddy blaze
On many a dusky visage plays.
On forkèd twigs the game is drest;
The neighbours share the simple feast:
The honey-mead, the millet-ale,
Flow round—and flow the jest and tale;
Wild legends of the ancient day,
Of hunting feat, of warlike fray;
And now come smiles, and now come sighs,
As mirth and grief alternate rise.
Or should a sterner strain awake,
Like sudden flame in summer-brake,
Bursts fiercely forth in battle song
The tale of Amakósa’s wrong;
Throbs every warrior bosom high,
With lightning flashes every eye,
And, in wild cadence, rings the sound
Of barbèd javelins clashing round.
But, lo! like a broad shield on high,
The moon gleams in the midnight sky.
’Tis time to part; the watch-dog’s bay
Beside the folds has died away.
’Tis time to rest; the mat is spread,
The hardy hunter’s simple bed;
His wife her dreaming infant hushes,
On the low cabin’s couch of rushes:
Softly he draws its door of hide,
And, stretched by his Gulúwi’s side,
Sleeps soundly till the peep of dawn
Wakes on the hill the dappled fawn;
Then forth again he gaily bounds,
With club and spear and questing hounds.
Thomas Pringle.
MAKANNA’S GATHERING.
Wake! Amakósa, wake!
And arm yourselves for war,
As coming winds the forest shake,
I hear a sound from far:
It is not thunder in the sky,
Nor lion’s roar upon the hill,
But the voice of Him who sits on high,
And bids me speak His will!
He bids me call you forth,
Bold sons of Káhabee,
To sweep the white men from the earth,
And drive them to the sea:
The sea which heaved them up at first,
For Amakósa’s curse and bane,
Howls for the progeny she nurst,
To swallow them again.
Hark! ’tis Uhlanga’s voice
From Debé’s mountain caves!
He calls you now to make your choice—
To conquer or be slaves:
To meet proud Amanglézi’s guns,
And fight like warriors nobly born:
Or, like Umláo’s feeble sons,[12]
Become the freeman’s scorn.
Then come ye chieftains bold,
With war plumes waving high;
Come, every warrior, young and old,
With club and assegai.
Remember how the spoiler’s host
Did through our land like locusts range!
Your herds, your wives, your comrades lost—
Remember—and revenge!
Fling your broad shields away—
Bootless against such foes;
But hand to hand we’ll fight to-day
And with their bayonets close.
Grasp each man short his stabbing spear—
And, when to battle’s edge we come,
Rush on their ranks in full career,
And to their hearts strike home!
Wake! Amakósa, wake!
And muster for the war:
The wizard-wolves from Keisi’s brake,
The vultures from afar,
Are gathering at Uhlanga’s call,
And follow fast our westward way—
For well they know, ere evening-fall,
They shall have glorious prey!
Thomas Pringle.
THE INCANTATION.
Half way up Indoda[13] climbing,
Hangs the wizard forest old,
From whose shade is heard the chiming
Of a streamlet clear and cold:
With a mournful sound it gushes
From its cavern in the steep;
Then at once its wailing hushes
In a lakelet dark and deep.
Standing by the dark-blue water,
Robed in panther’s speckled hide,
Who is she? Jalúhsa’s daughter,
Bold Makanna’s widowed bride.
Stern she stands, her left hand clasping
By the arm her wondering child:
He, her shaggy mantle grasping,
Gazes up with aspect wild.
Thrice in the soft fount of nursing
With sharp steel she pierced a vein,—
Thrice the white oppressor cursing,
While the blood gushed forth amain,—
Wide upon the dark-blue water,
Sprinkling thrice the crimson tide,—
Spoke Jalúhsa’s high-souled daughter,
Bold Makanna’s widowed bride.
“Thus into the Demon’s River
Blood instead of milk I fling:
Hear, Uhlanga—great Life-Giver!
Hear, Togúh—Avenging King!
Thus the Mother’s feelings tender
In my breast I stifle now:
Thus I summon you to render
Vengeance for the Widow’s vow!
“Who shall be the Chiefs avenger?
Who the Champion of the Land?
Boy! the pale Son of the Stranger
Is devoted to thy hand.
He who wields the bolt of thunder
Witnesses thy Mother’s vow!
He who rends the rocks asunder
To the task shall train thee now!
“When thy arm grows strong for battle,
Thou shalt sound Makanna’s cry,
Till ten thousand shields shall rattle
To war-club and assegai:
Then, when like hail-storm in harvest
On the foe sweeps thy career,
Shall Uhlanga whom thou servest,
Make them stubble to thy spear!”
Thomas Pringle.
THE CAFFER COMMANDO.
Hark! heard ye the signals of triumph afar?
’Tis our Caffer Commando returning from war:
The voice of their laughter comes loud on the wind,
Nor heed they the curses that follow behind.
For who cares for him, the poor Kósa, that wails
Where the smoke rises dim from yon desolate vales—
That wails for his little ones killed in the fray,
And his herds by the colonist carried away?
Or who cares for him that once pastured this spot,
Where his tribe is extinct and their story forgot?
As many another, ere twenty years pass,
Will only be known by their bones in the grass!
And the sons of the Keisi, the Kei, the Gareep,
With the Gunja and Ghona in silence shall sleep:
For England hath spoke in her tyrannous mood,
And the edict is written in African blood!
Dark Katta[14] is howling; the eager jackal,
As the lengthening shadows more drearily fall,
Shrieks forth his hymn to the hornèd moon;
And the lord of the desert will follow him soon:
And the tiger-wolf laughs in his bone-strewed brake,
As he calls on his mate and her cubs to awake;
And the panther and leopard come leaping along;
All hymning to Hecate a festival song:
For the tumult is over, the slaughter hath ceased—
And the vulture hath bidden them all to the feast.
Thomas Pringle.
THE ROCK OF RECONCILEMENT.
A rugged mountain, round whose summit proud
The eagle sailed, or heaved the thunder-cloud,
Poured from its cloven breast a gurgling brook,
Which down the grassy glades its journey took;
Oft bending round to lave, with rambling tide,
The groves of evergreens on either side.
Fast by this stream, where yet its course was young,
And, stooping from the heights, the forest flung
A grateful shadow o’er the narrow dell,
Appeared the missionary’s hermit cell.
Woven of wattled boughs, and thatched with leaves,
The sweet wild jasmine clustering to its eaves,
It stood, with its small casement gleaming through
Between two ancient cedars. Round it grew
Clumps of acacias and young orange bowers,
Pomegranate hedges, gay with scarlet flowers,
And pale-stemmed fig-trees with their fruit yet green,
And apple blossoms waving light between.
All musical it seemed with humming bees;
And bright-plumed sugar birds among the trees
Fluttered like living blossoms.
In the shade
Of a grey rock, that ’midst the leafy glade
Stood like a giant sentinel, we found
The habitant of this fair spot of ground—
A plain tall Scottish man, of thoughtful mien;
Grave but not gloomy. By his side was seen
An ancient chief of Amakósa’s race,
With javelin armed for conflict or the chase,
And, seated at their feet upon the sod,
A youth was reading from the Word of God,
Of Him who came for sinful men to die,
Of every race and tongue beneath the sky.
Unnoticed, towards them we softly stept.
Our friend was rapt in prayer; the warrior wept,
Leaning upon his hand; the youth read on.
And then we hailed the group: the chieftain’s son,
Training to be his country’s Christian guide—
And Brownlee and old Ishátshu side by side.
Thomas Pringle.
THE FORESTER OF THE NEUTRAL GROUND.
A SOUTH AFRICAN BORDER BALLAD.
We met in the midst of the neutral ground,
’Mong the hills where the buffalo’s haunts are found;
And we joined in the chase of the noble game,
Nor asked each other of nation or name.
The buffalo bull wheeled suddenly round,
When first from my rifle he felt a wound;
And, before I could gain the Umtóka’s bank,
His horns were tearing my courser’s flank.
That instant a ball whizzed past my ear,
Which smote the beast in his fierce career;
And the turf was drenched with purple gore,
As he fell at my feet with a bellowing roar.
The stranger came galloping up to my side,
And greeted me with a bold huntsman’s pride:
Full blithely we feasted beneath a tree;—
Then out spoke the Forester, Arend Plessie.
“Stranger, we now are true comrades sworn;
Come pledge me thy hand while we quaff the horn.
Thou’rt an Englishman good, and thy heart is free,
And ’tis therefore I’ll tell my story to thee.
“A Heemraad of Camdebóo was my sire;
He had flocks and herds to his heart’s desire,
And bondmen and maidens to run at his call,
And seven stout sons to be heirs of all.
“When we had grown up to man’s estate,
Our father bid each of us choose a mate,
Of Fatherland blood, from the black taint free,
As became a Dutch burgher’s proud degree.
“My brothers they rode to the Bovenland,
And each came with a fair bride back in his hand;
But I brought the handsomest bride of them all—
Brown Dinah, the bondmaid who sat in our hall.
“My father’s displeasure was stern and still;
My brothers’ flamed forth like a fire on the hill;
And they said that my spirit was mean and base,
To lower myself to the servile race.
“I bade them rejoice in their herds and flocks,
And their pale-faced spouses with flaxen locks;
While I claimed for my share, as the youngest son,
Brown Dinah alone with my horse and gun.
“My father looked black as a thunder-cloud,
My brothers reviled me and railed aloud,
And their young wives laughed with disdainful pride,
While Dinah in terror clung close to my side.
“Her ebon eyelashes were moistened with tears,
As she shrank abashed from their venomous jeers:
But I bade her look up like a burgher’s wife—
Next day to be mine, if God granted life.
“At dawn brother Roelof came galloping home
From the pastures—his courser all covered with foam;
‘’Tis the Bushmen!’ he shouted; ‘haste friends to the spoor!
Bold Arend come help with your long-barrelled roer.’
“Far o’er Bruintjes-hoogtè we followed—in vain:
At length surly Roelof cried, ‘Slacken your rein;
We have quite lost the track’—Hans replied with a smile,
—Then my dark-boding spirit suspected their guile.
“I flew to our father’s. Brown Dinah was sold!
And they laughed at my rage as they counted the gold.
But I leaped on my horse, with my gun in my hand,
And sought my lost love in the far Bovenland.
“I found her; I bore her from Gauritz’ fair glen,
Through lone Zitzikamma, by forest and fen.
To these mountains at last like wild pigeons we flew,
Far, far from the cold hearts of proud Camdebóo.
“I’ve reared our rude shieling by Gola’s green wood,
Where the chase of the deer yields me pastime and food:
With my Dinah and children I dwell here alone,
Without other comrades—and wishing for none.
“I fear not the Bushman from Winterberg’s fell,
Nor dread I the Caffer from Kat River’s dell;
By justice and kindness I’ve conquered them both,
And the sons of the desert have pledged me their troth.
“I fear not the leopard that lurks in the wood,
The lion I dread not, though raging for blood;
My hand it is steady—my aim it is sure—
And the boldest must bend to my long-barrelled roer.
“The elephant’s buff-coat my bullet can pierce,
And the giant rhinoceros, headlong and fierce;
Gnu, eland, and buffalo furnish my board,
When I feast my allies like an African lord.
“And thus from my kindred and colour exiled,
I live like old Ismael lord of the wild—
And follow the chase with my hounds and my gun,
Nor ever repent the bold course I have run.
“But sometimes there sinks on my spirit a dread
Of what may befall when the turf’s on my head;
I fear for poor Dinah—for brown Rodomond
And dimple-faced Karel, the sons of the bond.
“Then tell me, dear Stranger, from England the free,
What good tidings bring’st thou for Arend Plessie?
Shall the Edict of Mercy be sent forth at last,
To break the harsh fetters of Colour and Caste?”
Thomas Pringle.
THE EMIGRANT’S CABIN AT THE CAPE.
AN EPISTLE IN RHYME.
Where the young river, from its wild ravine,
Winds pleasantly through Eildon’s pastures green,—
With fair acacias waving on its banks,
And willows bending o’er in graceful ranks,
And the steep mountain rising close behind,
To shield us from the Snowberg’s wintry wind,—
Appears my rustic cabin, thatched with reeds,
Upon a knoll amid the grassy meads;
And, close beside it, looking o’er the lea,
Our summer-seat beneath an umbra-tree.
This morning, musing in that favourite seat,
My hound, old Yarrow, dreaming at my feet,
I pictured you, sage Fairbairn, at my side,
By some good Genie wafted o’er the tide;
And after cordial greetings, thus went on
In fancy’s dream our colloquy, dear John.
P.—Enter, my friend, our beehive-cottage door:
No carpet hides the humble earthen floor,
But it is hard as brick, clean-swept and cool.
You must be wearied? Take that jointed stool;
Or on this couch of leopard-skin recline;
You’ll find it soft—the workmanship is mine.
F.—Why, Pringle, yes—your cabin’s snug enough,
Though oddly shaped. But as for household stuff,
I only see some rough-hewn sticks and spars;
A wicker cupboard, filled with flasks and jars;
A pile of books, on rustic framework placed;
Hides of ferocious beasts that roam the waste;
Whose kindred prowl, perchance, around this spot—
The only neighbours, I suspect, you’ve got!
Your furniture, rude from the forest cut,
However, is in keeping with the hut.
This couch feels pleasant: is’t with grass you stuff it?
So far I should not care with you to rough it.
But—pardon me for seeming somewhat rude—
In this wild place how manage ye for food?
P.—You’ll find, at least, my friend, we do not starve:
There’s always mutton, if nought else, to carve;
And even of luxuries we have our share.
And here comes dinner (the best bill of fare)
Drest by that “nut-brown maiden,” Vytjè Vaal.
[To the Hottentot Girl]. Meid, roep de Juffrowen naar’t middagmaal.
[To F.] Which means—“The ladies into dinner call.”
(Enter Mrs. P. and her Sister, who welcome their Guest to Africa. The party take their seats round the table, and conversation proceeds.)
P.—First, here’s our broad-tailed mutton, small and fine,
The dish on which nine days in ten we dine;
Next, roasted springbok, spiced and larded well;
A haunch of hartébeest from Hyndhope Fell;
A paauw, which beats your Norfolk turkey hollow;
Korhaan, and Guinea-fowl, and pheasant follow;
Kid carbonadjes, à-la-Hottentot,
Broiled on a forkèd twig; and, peppered hot
With Chili pods, a dish called Caffer-stew;
Smoked ham of porcupine, and tongue of gnu.
This fine white household bread (of Margaret’s baking)
Comes from an oven, too, of my own making,
Scooped from an ant-hill. Did I ask before
If you would taste this brawn of forest-boar?
Our fruits, I must confess, make no great show:
Trees, grafts, and layers must have time to grow.
But there’s green roasted maize, and pumpkin pie,
And wild asparagus. Or will you try
A slice of water-melon?—fine for drouth,
Like sugared ices melting in the mouth.
Here too are wild grapes from our forest-vine,
Not void of flavour, though unfit for wine.
And here comes dried fruit I had quite forgot,
(From fair Glen-Avon, Margaret, is it not?)
Figs, almonds, raisins, peaches. Witbooy Swart
Brought this huge sackful from kind Mrs. Hart—
Enough to load a Covent-Garden cart.
But come, let’s crown the banquet with some wine,
What will you drink? Champagne? Port? Claret? Stein?
Well—not to tease you with a thirsty jest,
Lo, there our only vintage stands confest,
In that half-aum upon the spigot-rack.
And, certes, though it keeps the old kaap smaak,
The wine is light and racy; so we learn,
In laughing mood, to call it Cape Sauterne.
—Let’s pledge this cup “to all our friends,” Fairbairn!
F.—Well, I admit, my friend, your dinner’s good.
Springbok and porcupine are dainty food;
That lordly paauw was roasted to a turn;
And, in your country fruits, and Cape Sauterne,
The wildish flavour’s really—not unpleasant;
And I may say the same of gnu and pheasant.
—But—Mrs. Pringle ... shall I have the pleasure ...?
Miss Brown, ... some wine?—(These quaighs are quite a treasure)
—What! leave us now? I’ve much to ask of you ...
But since you will go—for an hour adieu.
[Exeunt Ladies.
But, Pringle—“à nos moutons revenons”—
Cui bono’s still the burden of my song—
Cut off, with these good ladies, from society,
Of savage life you soon must feel satiety:
The Mind requires fit exercise and food,
Not to be found ’mid Afric’s desert rude.
And what avail the spoils of wood and field,
The fruits or vines your fertile valleys yield,
Without that higher zest to crown the whole—
“The feast of Reason and the flow of Soul?”
—Food, shelter, fire, suffice for savage men;
But can the comforts of your wattled den,
Your sylvan fare and rustic tasks suffice
For one who once seemed finer joys to prize?
—When, erst, like Virgil’s swains, we used to sing
Of streams and groves, and “all that sort of thing,”
The spot we meant for our “poetic den”
Was always within reach of books and men;
By classic Esk, for instance, or Tweed-side,
With gifted friends within an easy ride;
Besides our college chum, the parish priest;
And the said den with six good rooms at least.—
Here! save for her who shares and soothes your lot,
You might as well squat in a Caffer’s cot!
Come, now, be candid: tell me, my dear friend,
Of your aspiring aims is this the end?
Was it for nature’s wants, fire, shelter, food,
You sought this dreary, soulless solitude?
Broke off your ties with men of cultured mind,
Your native land, your early friends resigned?
As if, believing with insane Rousseau
Refinement the chief cause of human woe,
You meant to realise that raver’s plan,
And be a philosophic Bosjesman!—
Be frank; confess the fact you cannot hide—
You sought this den from disappointed pride.
P.—You’ve missed the mark, Fairbairn: my breast is clear.
Nor wild romance nor pride allured me here:
Duty and destiny with equal voice
Constrained my steps: I had no other choice.
The hermit “lodge in some vast wilderness,”
Which sometimes poets sigh for, I confess,
Were but a sorry lot. In real life
One needs a friend—the best of friends, a wife:
But with a home thus cheered, however rude,
There’s nought so very dull in solitude,—
Even though that home should happen to be found,
Like mine, in Africa’s remotest bound.
—I have my farm and garden, tools and pen;
My schemes for civilising savage men;
Our Sunday service, till the Sabbath-bell
Shall wake its welcome chime in Lynden dell:
Some duty or amusement, grave or light,
To fill the active day from morn till night:
And thus two years so lightsomely have flown
That still we wonder when the week is gone.
—We have at times our troubles, it is true,
Passing vexations and privations too;
But were it not for woman’s tender frame,
These are annoyances I scarce would name;
For though perchance they plague us while they last,
They only serve for jests when they are past.
And then your notion that we’re quite exiled
From social life amid these mountains wild,
Accords not with the fact—as you will see
On glancing o’er this district map with me.
. . . . . . . . . .
Thomas Pringle.
THE VOLUNTEERS OF ENGLAND.
BY A COLONIST.
Cælum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
A trumpet blast is pealing
’Mongst Albion’s echoing hills,
Arousing every feeling
That patriot’s bosom thrills:
O’er hill and dale resounding,
It sends its loud alarm;
The Freeman’s war-cry sounding,—
“For Hearths and Altars, arm!”
A Despot’s monster legions
Are on their haughty way;
A Despot’s warlike regions
Send forth their proud array,
To raze the broad foundations
Of Freedom’s Temple shrine,
And from among the nations
To blot her name divine.
From peasant’s lowly dwelling;
From baron’s ancient hall,
With bosoms proudly swelling,
Rise! sons of England, ALL!
From Cambria’s vales of beauty,
“Britons” of Britain, come,
Prompt at the call of duty,
With strong right arm “strike home!”
From every mist-clad mountain,
Sons of the hardy North,
From lake, and glen, and fountain,
Come in your manhood forth.
From Eastern fen and plainland,
From Western tarn and fell,
From islet, rock, and mainland
The nation’s gathering swell.
“We come!” in tones of thunder,
Rings echoing round the land;
“We come!” and scenes of wonder
Burst forth on every hand.
Workmen have sprung to warriors,
Herdsmen to heroes grown,
And rise, in living barriers,
Around Victoria’s throne.
Peasant and peer are joining,
Yeoman with baron stands;
Strength, wealth, and rank combining,
And nerving hearts and hands.
Loyal, if “horny-handed,”
Industry’s thousands come;
In brother’s compact banded
For Altar, Throne, and Home.
Hear it! to Heaven ascending,
A nation’s solemn vow;
While, at His altar bending,
To God alone they bow.
“No foreign Home invading,
We strike no foreign throne;
But,—God from Heaven aiding,
To death we guard OUR OWN.”
Rev. H. H. Dugmore.
July 2, 1861.
“THE DEAR OLD LAND.”
A glorious land is the “Dear Old Land,”
Our fathers’ island home;
Tho’ its moorlands are cold when the snow lies deep,
And the mists round the sides of its mountains creep,
And the waves are white when the March winds sweep,
As they dash on its cliffs in foam.
’Tis changed since the days when the Druid old
Was seen in the forest glades;
When the wolf was tracked to his mountain den,
And the wild boar roused in the gloomy glen,
And the chase was a sport to test the men
That ranged through the leafy shades.
Where the victim bled on the altar stone,
Or died in a fiery grave;—
Where wild woods sheltered the outlaw’s band,—
Where the salt marsh mingled sea and land,
Proud mansions rise, or cities stand,
Or golden harvests wave.
A story of fame has the “Dear Old Land,”
And it dates from the days gone by;
When Right with Might the strife began,
And Freedom’s voice with the Fire-cross ran,
And the wakened Serf rose up,—a Man,
To conquer his rights, or DIE!
There were hardy souls in the “Dear Old Land,”
In the stern dark days of yore,
When the arm could do what the heart could dare,
And the threats of a tyrant were “empty air,”
And they made him tremble in his lair,
As they roused themselves in power.
A story of fame has the “Dear Old Land,”
And it is not ended yet.
Wherever the sea’s wild waves have curled
Her fleets proudly sail with flag unfurled,
And many a lesson they’ve taught the world,
Which the world will not forget.
And tell me the land, o’er the earth’s broad face,
Where her “braves” have not been found,
From East to West, with the glorious sun,
The sound of their drums when the day is done,
From realm to realm goes rolling on
Unceasing the wide world round!
. . . . . . . . . .
But the warrior’s fame has stains of blood,
And it raises the widow’s wail;
Look we then on the glories whose milder rays
Will bring no tears to the eyes that gaze;
Whose trophies of triumph, whose songs of praise
The tenderest heart may hail.
There are spirits of might in the “Dear Old Land,”
That have seized on a giant grim,
And the burdens which man and beast had borne
With sweat of brow, and frame hard worn
From morn till night, and from night till morn,
They have boldly laid on him.
He raises the load from the deep dark mine,
He speeds the loom amain;
He wields the ponderous hammer’s force,
Gives the ship ’gainst wind and tide free course,
And snorts in the breath of the iron horse
That nor weariness feels, nor pain.
’Tis glorious to ride at his headlong pace
’Mongst the crags of the forest glen,
To skim o’er the moorlands bleak and wide,
To pierce through the rock-ribbed mountain side,
As he plays with the work—in giant pride—
Of twice ten thousand men.
There are spirits of power in the “Dear Old Land,”
Who can bid the lightning speed
From North to South, from East to West,—
A courier swift that asks no rest,
But instant writes command or quest
Where the “ends of the world” may read.
There are spirits of light in the “Dear Old Land,”
Who rejoice when “the Truth makes free;”
Who shout when a nation wakes in might,
And seizes its long denied birth-right,
And prisoned souls burst forth to light;—
O, glorious sight to see!
There are spirits of love in the “Dear Old Land,”
Who weep for their kindred’s wrongs;
And who work as they weep, in patient power,
Through the livelong day,—through the midnight hour
While rescued victims blessings shower
From wondering, grateful tongues.
Then hail! all hail! thou “Dear Old Land,”
Where our fathers’ ashes lie;
There are sunbeams bright on this far off shore,
There are starlit skies when the day is o’er,—
And we never shall tread thy greensward more,
But we’ll love thee,—TILL WE DIE!
Rev. H. H. Dugmore.
THE FUNERAL IN THE ABBEY.
List! there is music sounding!
Not airy strains, that lead the mazy dance;
Not trumpet tones, that stir the warrior’s soul;
But soft, and slow, and solemn, as it swells
And rolls afar and dies, midst its own echoes
From vaulted roof, and lofty aisle dim-lighted,
Where clustering columns rise, and rainbow rays
Gleam in their varied glory o’er the scene.
’Tis in the sacred fane where sleeps the dust
Of those whom Britain loves to honour, who
Shed living honour by their deeds on her,
Challenging place upon the rolls of Fame.
Sages, and saints, and sons of song lie there;
Wresters of Nature’s secrets;—senators,
Whose thund’rous eloquence could awe the world;
Patriots whose lifeblood for their country flowed;
War chiefs who led her armies on to glory;
Statesmen with eye far-reaching, who could thread
Diplomacy’s dark mazes, and, the helm
With firm hand grasping, steer the nation’s bark
Through storms of strife to honour and to peace.
And royalty’s proud dust lies mouldering there,
’Neath sculptured marbles, or midst gilded shrines:
While high o’erhead the ancient banners droop.—
Monarchs of other days,—of other ages,
Successive generations of the great,
Who ruled the realm of England as she grew
From isolate obscurity to greatness
That with a fame undying fills the world.
Lo! there,—an open grave! and heads are bare,
And bent;—and bosoms heave, and tears are falling
From youthful womanhood,—from hoary age.
Men weep, as slowly through the reverent throng
Is borne what hides from view a shrivelled form,
Wasted and featureless: yet round that bier
Stand silently the great of many lands.
Britain’s high-born stand there; and kings of men
Of other realms stand there by envoy. There
The sons of science gather, and the friends
Of light and liberty. The Churches’ messengers
Look on in sadness there; and a vast throng,
Crowding around, sigh forth a nation’s sympathy.
Tokens of reverent love,—azalea wreaths,
Laurel and myrtle, with fair flowers entwined,
Bright immortelles, branches of Afric’s palm,—
(Symbol of triumph e’en in death) are there.
And,—honour to the honour’d!—Britain’s Queen
Sign of “respect and admiration” sends,—
Her own, and royal daughter’s funeral gifts
To deck the bier.
And who is it that thus
Draws to himself, in death, the eyes of nations?
Is it some warrior leader, who has died
In the proud hour of victory; and, wept
By a whole people’s tears, lies down to rest?
—Or is it one who, in a nation’s peril,
Has earned a nation’s gratitude by wise
And warning counsels in her council halls?
—Is it a Prince has died? That royalty
Should sigh her grief, and nobles weep around?
’Tis Livingstone!—That name a thousand tongues
Through years of hope and fear alternate, uttered;
While he who bore it, deep in Afric’s wilds,
Solving her mystery of ages, trod
Her deserts, traced her streams,—a pioneer
Of science, commerce, liberty, and mercy.
—A “weaver boy” thus honoured!—Wherefore not?
He wore, indeed, no ducal coronet;
Nor dwelt in lordly hall. But “stamp” of “rank”[15]
He needed not, while Nature’s “gold” of manhood,
Solid, and pure, and bright, shone through his soul.
The “weaver boy,” in youthful prime, had yearned
O’er Afric’s sons enslaved; for his own soul,
By “grace of God” emancipated, longed
To free from bondage “body, soul, and spirit”
Of those who were immortal as himself,
And co-redeemed, though dark in mind as hue.
He bore the Cross’s standard o’er the plains
Where wandering tribes by Moffat gathered dwelt;
And preached the Cross’s story in the tongues
Strange to his earlier years.—But as he stood,
And looked to “regions” yet “beyond,” where white man’s foot
Had never trod, fresh longings filled his soul.
—“Millions dwell yonder:—all unknown to us,
They live and die in darkness: and they groan
In bitter bondage, where no ray of hope
Shines through the gloom.—I go to find the way:—
Let others follow.”
And he went,—alone;
And braved the desert blast, the serpent’s folds,
The jungle’s ambush, and the lion’s fang:
He braved the fevered swamp, the tropic sun,
The mountain torrent, and the savage spear.
Barbarian wonder followed in his steps;
And treachery shrank before the magic power
Of Christian kindness, single and unarmed.
He vanished from our sight,—and time rolled on
While he was lost from view.
At length was heard
Rumour of strange discoveries: lakes unknown
Had spread their silver waters to his gaze;
And mighty streams, through vales all green and glorious
Poured their vast floods o’er thundering cataracts,
Where men had deemed were nought but deserts drear.
“From ocean through to ocean” tropic realms
Were traversed with unfaltering footsteps, till
Regions before unknown, with all their wonders
Rose into view, and hidden tribes disclosed
Their being and their need.
He rested then
Awhile, and told his countrymen the story
Of his lone wanderings over Afric’s wilds.
Men wondered while they listened, as they heard
Of grassy slopes, and waving woods, and sparkling waters;
Of birds of beauty, flowers of gorgeous hues;
And these where they had pictured a Sahara,
With ’whelming sandstorms, and the death-blast dire
Of red simoom.
He rested not for long:—
The spell was on him, and his work not done.
And now he led a band, who bore the light
Of truth divine, to chase away the darkness
That brooded over regions bright and fair,
Where “man alone is vile.”—’Twas there he laid
The partner of his bosom, who had shared
The joys and sorrows of his younger years.
A grave by Shire’s Waters, far away
From home and kindred, holds the precious dust.
And now his ties to earth are loosened:—now,
The beckoning Hand that calls him onwards still,
Is seen more plainly,—and he follows. He
Would lift the cloud from regions still unknown;
Heard of but through the victims of a vile
Traffic in human blood. His soul was fired
With ardent resolution to destroy,
(Or perish in the contest) the dire curse
That blighted nations when they might be blest.
A vision rose before him:—These fair realms
Yielding earth’s teeming increase in exchange
For varied handiwork of other lands;—
An open-handed commerce giving boons
To honest industry, while crushing down
The cursed manstealer’s trade:—The light of truth,
Of Christian truth, for mind, and heart, and life,
For family and nation, blending with
Prismatic rays by science shed around:
The darkness melting, heathen orgies vile
Yielding the place to worship bright and pure;
Songs of salvation where the savage yells;—
Slavery of mind and body killed together,
And Freedom smiling glad o’er all the land!
—This was his vision;—and it might be true;—
And he would labour that it might,—to death!
Again, yet once again, the word, “Farewell!”
A last farewell: we heard his voice no more.
The years rolled on,—and on: he came not back.
Tidings, indeed, there were; but “far between,
Like angel visits,” were those tidings brief,
That still he lived, and toiled,—the white man lone,
Who with such wondrous spell o’er savage minds,
And with charmed life, held pain and death at bay.
—And then came silence.——“Has he sunk at last?”
And then came other tidings;—“He is dead!
And dead by murderous hands!”—And hearts were chilled
With horror, and stood still.—But some said, “No!
Not thus will that brave spirit pass away.
Africa knows his errand:—’tis not so.”
Nor was it so. A kindred spirit sought,
And found him!—and with all the old fire burning;
But with the censer now well nigh consumed.
—“Come home with me, and rest: well hast thou earned
The right upon thy laurels to repose:—
The world is yearning o’er thee:—Come and rest!”
“Not yet! not yet! There is still work to do.
Let me but show the way to Afric’s heart:—
Leave me to trace the water-path by which
Old England’s white-wing’d sea-birds shall ascend,—
Bearing her light, and liberty, and peace,—
To roll away the dark reproach of ages;
And then,—My work is done.”
And Stanley left him.
And then, th’ enfeebled frame, once more essaying
To climb the mountain, pierce the forest’s gloom,
Stem the swift torrent, cross the lake’s broad breast,
And wade the sedgy marsh,—gave way at last!
But still the spirit, o’er the flesh triumphant,
Registered till the “hand had lost its cunning,”
The record precious of that life’s last task,
Which only death could end....
He died alone: none saw the spirit part.
Thus had he willed to die;—alone with God.
The morning greeting of his faithful band
No longer met the welcome, kind response.
The spirit had gone home; and gone in silence;—
And there knelt lifeless clay!
And none were nigh,
Save Afric’s swarthy sons. But these had learned
To love and reverence him whose life was given
A sacrifice for injured Afric’s weal;
And they would guard his relics, e’en in death.
They left his heart where fitly it should rest;
And bore, in reverent hands, the faded form,
Rudely, but lovingly embalmed; and after days,
And weeks, and months, of weary toil,
Gave to its kindred their last sacred trust;—
And there it lies!—and thousands stand around,
To do the martyr honour as he rests.
And now “his body” sinks from mortal sight,
Midst showers of amaranths, and fragrant flowers,
That, white and pure, fall fast from loving hands.
“Buried in peace,” it lies, ’mongst kindred heroes:
While white-robed choristers, and organ pealing,
Blend in the final, loud, triumphant strain,
And the high arches echo as they sing,—
“But his soul liveth! Liveth Evermore!”
Rev. H. H. Dugmore.
Stormberg, May 1874.