Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/120

94 And on the rocks, in deathless hue, The records of a perished race That from this land of ours withdrew In silence, leaving scarce a trace.

Poor waifs upon creation's skirts, Your melancholy history, To men of earnest mind, asserts A problem, and a mystery: Whence came ye? Wherefore did ye live To wither from the sphere of being— And why did Nature to ye give No ears to hear, nor eyes for seeing?—

The music and the light whereby All men must walk, to guide your steps Along life's path beneath the sky, Between the snaring pitfall deeps; Ye sank from something higher far, And, distanced in life's struggling race, Your last and failing remnants are Erased from off the great world's face. W. C. Scully.