Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/82

56 CROSSING THE HEX MOUNTAINS.

Tweefontein in the moonlight the little white tents shine, And a cry comes out of the darkness from those who guard the line; The panting heart of the engine pulsed through the resting cars, And beyond are the quiet mountains, and above are the quiet stars.

Sinister rise the mountains, jagged and bleak and bare, Cloven and rent and fissured by fire and torrent there; But the moon is a tender lady that loves not sights like these And in her spell transfigured, all things must soothe and please.

Far on the veldt behind us shone the steel-drawn parallels, And beneath was the famished river led by the famished wells, And behind the shuttered windows, and beneath the hooded light, Folk in the train were sleeping through all the wondrous night.

But I was out on the platform waiting the whistle shrill That would break in a lustre of echoes right on the face of the hill;