Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/171

 A CAPE HOMESTEAD. that glimpse of the Table Rock
 * Seems the key to the breathless spell.

Never, you'd say, could the wild wind shock
 * A single leaf from the oaks of Stel.

Four white gables, with scroll and bend,
 * Lettered and dated, nobly wide;

Red roof, and the shutters, end to end,
 * Flung back at the lattice side.

Sleep for ever seems nestling there,
 * All uncounted the hours go by.

Silent sits in his deep old chair,
 * That white-haired man, with the dreaming eye.

Does he think, as the shadows fall,
 * And the swift bats skim in the evening glow,

Of the haunting voices that used to call
 * Through the doorways long ago?

Think of the days when the young folks made
 * Mirth and music beneath that roof,

Danced at night in the moon's soft shade,
 * And rode and hunted by kop and kloof?

Yes, and the time when the boys would trek,
 * When the Cape cart stood by the open door,

Till they watched it rounding the far-off nek. ..
 * And another came back no more.