Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/169

 Yet not beside the guarded Cape
 * His narrowed fancy dwelt;

Not only in the golden grape
 * Was all the flame he felt.

He knew the thought that feeds and fills,
 * The ceaseless northward spell;

Three hundred miles to the Copper Hills
 * Rode Simon van der Stel.

The exiles of the frugal French
 * A southern refuge sought;

He bade them prove, by hedge and trench,
 * The skill their fathers taught.

He watched his race of sturdy boers,
 * He saw their numbers swell;

"Send wives for lusty bachelors,"
 * Wrote Simon van der Stel.

Full thirty years her quiet charm
 * The Cape-land o'er him cast,

Till at Constantia's favoured farm
 * He turned to rest at last.

The builders from the Haarlem wreck
 * Dug deep and founded well;

But chief of all their work to deck
 * Was Simon van der Stel.

True statesman of that elder day,
 * The Dutchman's praise be thine!

Nor lesser claim need Britons lay
 * To kinship of thy line.