A Treasury of South African Poetry and Verse/Perceval Gibbon

A Treasury of South African Poetry and Verse.

THE VOORLOOPERS.

They hasten to their heritage,
The guerdon of their days,
To labour long and wearily
For scanty gold or praise;
To toil unseen and overmuch,
And if their meed be fame,
To carve themselves an epitaph
To mark their place and name.

They hasten to their heritage,
The right to bridge and build,
To serve among the journeymen,
To suffer with the guild;
To plan the work, and found it fair,
And, ere 'tis gable high,
To pass the trowel to the next,
And turn aside to die.

They hasten to their heritage,
The tender and the tried;
Each tide beholds them outward bound,
God wot, the field is wide.
They bring the best of heart and hand,
Of blood, and breed, and birth;
Their graves upon our frontiers lie,
To testify their worth.

They hasten to their heritage,
The feeble and the fain;
They bring the best of youth and hope,
To garner age and pain,
To glean the dole of little thanks,
To suffer and be dumb;
To die when duty names the man—
And still their cohorts come.

Perceval Gibbon.

MIMOSA.

The bloom of the mimosa
Between your lips and me,
Withholds you like a lattice
Of golden filigree.

The thorns of the mimosa,
Between your breast and me,
Are like the blades of vengeance
That guard the Eden tree.

The breach in the mimosa,
That gives your lips to me,
Is like the breath of blessing
That sets the spirit free.

The scent of the mimosa,
That rains on you and me,
Is like a dear remembrance
Of bliss that used to be.

Perceval Gibbon.

THE VELDT.

Cast the window wider, sonny,
Let me see the veldt,
Rolling grandly to the sunset,
Where the mountains melt,
With the sharp horizon round it,
Like a silver belt.

Years and years I've trekked across it,
Ridden back and fore,
Till the silence and the glamour
Ruled me to the core;
No man ever knew it better,
None could love it more.

There's a balm for crippled spirits
In the open view,
Running from your very footsteps
Out into the blue;
Like a wagon-track to heaven,
Straight 'twixt God and you.

There's a magic, soul-compelling,
In the boundless space,
And it grows upon you, sonny,
Like a woman's face—
Passionate and pale and tender,
With a marble grace.

There’s the sum of all religion
In its mightiness;
Winged truths, beyond your doubting,
Close about you press.
God is greater in the open—
Little man is less.

There’s a voice pervades its stillness,
Wonderful and clear;
Tongues of prophets and of angels,
Whispering far and near,
Speak an everlasting gospel
To the spirit’s ear.

There's a sense you gather, sonny,
In the open air;
Shift your burden ere it break you:
God will take His share.
Keep your end up for your own sake;
All the rest’s His care.

There's a promise, if you need it,
For the time to come;
All the veldt is loud and vocal
Where the Bible’s dumb.
Heaven is paved with gold for parsons,
But it's grassed for some.

There’s a spot I know of, sonny,
Yonder by the stream;
Bushes handy for the fire,
Water for the team.
By the old home outspan, sonny,
Let me lie and dream.

Perceval Gibbon.

VOICES OF THE VELDT.

Land! I will show you land; mile upon mile
Of ridge and kopje, bush and candid waste,
Sun-drowned and empty, tacit as the sea,
Belted about with the horizon line,
And over all the blank and curving sky.
Is it not still? And with the sacred calm
Of cool church shadows, where one speaks and moves
As though God spied upon one; and all things—
Trespassing sunbeams, spiders, swarming motes,
The profile of a woman at her prayers,
The tang that rules the sermon, one's own thoughts—
Go bowed below a dread significance.
You know the feeling; but the veldt, my veldt,
Is more than any church, more vastly still
Than grey cathedrals drowsing down the years,
More fraught with solemn meanings and dim dreams,
Than any storied hive of shaveling saints.
Still, did I say? Well, still it surely is,
And yet it hath a voice, its mood of sound,
As prophets, meanly meditating, start
From torpor into fired utterance.
On its occasion it will speak in tones
That thundered first of all on Sinai.
The voice of all the world and all the sky
Poured through the tempest-trumpet, and, between
The drum of sullen strength and passion's shrill,
Riding above the thunder and the wind,
There comes at last the still small voice of God.
And it will speak sometimes, far off and clear,
Aloof, unflushed, ungilded, calm, superb,
The voice of angels at the judgment-seat,
Impartial, cold exponents of the law.
And then it chants! O morning stars in song,
O hills in choir triumphant, ringing earth,
And dome of shuddering echoes, hush and hear!
It has the anthem laid upon its lips
Which all creation sang at the seventh dawn,
And God heard, smiling, saying: "It is good."
And in wild breezes, ere the timid spring
Quite flings her draperies apart, and dares
Her naked foot of blessing on the turf,
Her naked breast of promise on the air,
It pipes, like that goat-footed god of Greece
Beside his stream, pillowed on life itself,
And sometimes like the potent piper, who
Charmed hell to hush its dreary agony.

Perceval Gibbon.

KOMANI.

Runs Komani ever?
Weep the willows still?
Gleam the grass-fires nightly
Wreathed upon the hill?
Comes the summer singing?
Tiptoes yet the spring?
Tell me of Komani—
Tell me everything.

For yonder by Komani
I left my lady fair,
Who smiled for ever under
Her aureole of hair—
Smiled and would not hearken,
Heard and would not smile.
I turned me from Komani
A long and weary while.

Often by Komani
I heard my lady's name
Amid the tinkling ripples,
And is it still the same?
Or goes Komani voiceless
Where music used to be,
Forgetful of my lady,
As once she was of me.

Perceval Gibbon.

JIM.

(AN INCIDENT.)

From the Kei to Umzimkulu
 We chartered to ride,
But before we reached Umtata
 Jim turned in and died.
By Bashee I buried Jim.
Ah! but I was fond of him;
An' but for the niggers grinning,
 I'd—yes, I'd have cried.

'Twas a weary trek through Griqualand,
 And me all alone;
Three teams and a dozen niggers
 To boss on my own.
And I felt a need for Jim;
It was just the job for him,
Hazin' the teams and the niggers,
 Hard grit to the bone.

I lost a load at Kokstad:
 An axle fell through;
I hadn't heart to tinker it,
 So pushed on with two.
If I'd only had old Jim!
Axles never broke with him;
But I never could handle waggons
 Like Jim used to do.

I came to Umzimkulu
 With a pain in my head;
I ought to ha' bought med'cine,
 But I liquored instead:
Never used to drink with Jim;
There's a girl that asked for him;
But the jackals root at Bashee—
 An' Jim, he's dead!

Perceval Gibbon.