Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/172

 Oh, white nest, but thy birds are far;
 * East and northward the strong sons go;

One where the lone Nyanzas are,
 * One where the shoals of the Orange flow.

One is treading the world's wide path
 * In crowded cities beyond the seas;

And one found rest, in the hour of wrath,
 * On a warrior's couch of ease.

Bid them come back again—those that can,
 * Lead them hither o'er berg and veldt.

Comely woman and proper man,
 * Let them kneel where of old they knelt.

Would they not in a moment take
 * Step and voice from the years long fled?

Just as soon might the dead one wake
 * From his wild Shangani bed!

Yet he waiteth, the grey old sire,
 * On the pillared stoep, by the creeping vines.

The low sun wraps him with rosy fire,
 * And the thin gum-shadows are drawn like lines.

The Kaffir, driving the great-horned herds,
 * Passes, crooning a quiet tune;

And the mountains mutter, too low for words,
 * "We shall comfort him very soon."

Lance Fallaw.