Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/149

 THOMAS PRINGLE. (.) glory of poetic light The century dawned whose night Is deepening around us. Joyful rang The earth when all those morning stars together sang.

Our Ocean-Mother gave to us One, not least luminous,— Pringle, the poet of the parched Karoo. From thraldom of the "glittering eye" his music drew

Coleridge, who loved its magic well; E'en Scott beneath it fell, Forgetful of the Gael and Saxon feud While listening to that weird romance of solitude.

A fighter thou, with never time To build the deathless rhyme; Thine the flung gauntlet of a righteous hate, And thine a flower of song to lone ways consecrate.

Thou singest; we behold the band Of exiles leave their land: The fair dear hills of Scotland fade away For ever! eyes unused to weeping weep that day.