A Treasury of South African Poetry and Verse/R. J. T. Jefferson
THE RIVER OF LIFE.
Like the tide of a mighty river,
The years are running fast,
As they hurry us on to the future,
Like leaves on their current cast.
And that river shall merge in the ocean
Of a mystic eternity;
And the banks are the countless ages
That mark its course to the sea.
God breathes on the dim old forests,
Upon those banks that grow;
And the leaves from the stately branches
Are shed on the stream below.
A few there be on the river,
That whirl and softly glide
By the banks of Ease and Pleasure,
With a smooth and gentle tide.
But many are cast in the shallows
With a heavy lading of woe;
And the waters are bitter with sorrow,
And the tide to the sea runs slow.
Yet some sing blithe on their journey,
Though tossed on an angry wave;
And they conquer the terrors of tempests,
For the hearts of these are brave.
Still, oft as the future lowers,
Like a tempest overhead,
They look for the light of a beacon
In the refuge of the dead.
And they wonder what days shall be numbered,
Or how many years be sped,
Ere sorrow shall seek for a resting
In Nature's mouldy bed.
But that resting seems ever distant,
Though sometimes, sudden and fast,
A leaf on the banks is stranded,
And the River of Life runs past.
For on, and forever onward,
The River of Life still runs,
Still strews its banks with its dead leaves,
And wearies its living ones.
Yet though upon life's journey,
Our hearts will needs despond,
When the Past gleams through a desert,
And we know not what's beyond.
Far, far in the infinite Future,
Immutable, dim, and vast,
Looms the haze of that mighty Ocean,
Where the River will merge at last.
And this is life we are learning,
Patient and brave to be;
And the goal for which we are steering,
Is Immortality.
R. J. T. Jefferson.
THE HARMONIES OF WATERS.
Sing, sing, ye mellow streams and laughing brooks!
Sound every fountain and glad waterfall!
Through sylvan shades and dells,
Go singing to the sea!
More fair are ye, Nature's sweet bards, more fair
Than airy thought or fairy dream can be,
Whose beauties do not last,
But gleam and fade away!
Companions of immortal bards that sing,
More true are ye, more true in heart and voice
Than many glories be,
That bid the soul rejoice!
An open charm is yours—a subtle power:
The charm of beauty and the power of song,
To wile the pleasant hour
For many a weary mind!
Ye that have common beauty with the heavens,
With each bright star of heav'n and flow'r of earth,
And with the forests bare,
And waving mountain pines!
Ye that have common music with the spheres,
With each soft-singing orb and warbling bird,
And with the sounding sea,
And soughing of the wind!
When little songsters pour their melting lays,
How sweetly do your bird-like warblings rise;
But, in the hush of night,
More earnest tones ye raise.
The sun shall kiss you with his golden beams,
The moon with silver light shall crown you fair;
Sing on, melodious streams,
Sweet music lightens care!
R. J. T. Jefferson.
THE VOICES OF NATURE.
The various song
Of chanting birds that sweetly throng
Their native skies,
Or careless hopping, wanton on
Earth's leafy trees;
The busy hum of droning bees;
The chirruping and piping thrill
Of insect life on vale and hill;
The brooding turtle's coo;
The distant lowing herd and bleating sheep,
That soothe the drowsy sluggard's early sleep;
The croak and drum of frogs, and whistle too
That from the marsh arise;
The soughing wind;
The tempest raging and unkind,
In forest dim and lonely wood,
The cascade dashing down the glen;
The fountain laughing in the fen;
The wildly-warbling, running brook—
A thread of silver sheen,
That warbles past
Where poets love to dream,
With shades of spreading boughs o'ercast,
And golden sunshine oft between—
A little rhyme from nature's book;
The murmur of the river's flow,
Crooning soft and low,
Gliding, gliding to the sea,
Like Time to broad Eternity;
And, from its breast,
The startled whirr and cry of wildfowl from its nest,
Disturbed from rest;
The Ocean's changeful song,
Now low and sweet, now deep and strong—
Oft waking in an angry mood
In tempest rude,
Oft wantoning among the scattered shingle,
Where wild waves laugh
And idly chaff,
Till all come dancing in and break and mingle;
The watch-dog's honest bark;
The hearty cheer of chanticleer;
The cries of weary beasts, that shun
The face of man in desert dun
And forest wild and dark;
The thunder-bolt that shakes the ground;
The strong glad voice of man—of all the sweetest sound!
In these and other voices
This planet-world rejoices,
And rolls, and rolls with merry rhyme
Along its sphere,
And with a varied song sublime
Still strives to cheer
The flight of Ages and the march of Time!
Dormant in Man—and not in Man alone—
There is another voice—a deeper tone—
That lives and dies,
And lives again;
A yearning, dim and strange—
That, pining, mourns, and, mourning, longs in vain
For what's beyond the range
Of aught we know on earth—
Then sleeps or dies—mysterious from its birth!
'Tis in the seas and silent skies!
'Tis in each star that there doth rise!
In all things, small or great,
Of high or low estate!
It rises deep and solemn from the breast
Of brooding Nature, when at rest—
Unheard by Man, and yet intense
To some mysterious sense
That lies within;
A voice of pathos—pleading—as to win
An audience of Divine intelligence;
A mute appeal,
Yet eloquent, it doth reveal
A spirit there, that in its fever, moans and sighs
For unknown remedies!
Thus lives and dies,
Yet ever lives again,
As tending to some higher plane,
This sweetly urgent Voice, of deep, pathetic pain!
Beauty enhances Harmony,
And Harmony responds with equal glee,
Till both are interwoven in a sweeter dream!
Wherefore each common sight we see
Is linked to some sweet minstrelsy!
For oh! the whole intricate scheme
Of Voicing Nature tends to Good,
To Good that knoweth no alloy!
Behold it in her every mood
Of Sorrow, Rage, or Joy!
And so, to this behoof,
The golden threads shall yet unwind
On Nature's loom.
The warp shall yet be woven with the woof—
The heavens their sweetest joys shall yet unbind,
To banish wretched Woe afar to his ancestral gloom
R. J. T. Jefferson.
ON THE KALAHARI.
All day the fiery-hearted sun,
With burning rays of heat intense,
Has scourged the desert, wild and dun;
Nor stretched one shade from shrub or stone,
Where weariness could lay him down,
To shun his fierce offence!
The furious god, with strength amain,
With flaming brand, with shaft of fire,
Still smites the panting desert plain,
Whose muscles, nerve, and sinew strain
To spurn his vigour back again,
With furnace-breathing ire!
While zephyrs, trembling in affright,
With'ring beneath the awful blast,
Scarce dare attempt a fevered flight,
But inly pray for wishéd night
To flood the fulgent scene of blight,
And close the battle fast!
The hunter here shall careful tread
Across the blinding desert sheen;
For here and there, in sandy bed,
There lurks the yellow cobra dread,
Or lifts his hooded, deadly head
With unexpected spleen.
The dusky adder rears his crest,
And, with a sudden measured stroke,
Darts on the Secretary's breast,
That dares his secret haunt molest;
But soon those poisonous fangs shall rest
In death themselves provoke.
No singing bird is in the land!
Nor haunt of man, nor scattered farm,
No fierce, maurading Kafir band,
With war-song booming o'er the sand,
Shall sound the dread alarm!
But wandering Bushman lonely glide,
Exulting in his desert air;
Whose pigmy form, with antic stride,
His nimble-footed drudge beside,
Still drums his shield of toughened hide
Across the lion's lair.
And rav'ning beast and bird of prey,
The gaunt retainers of the wild,
Afar perceive the welt'ring clay—
The fleet gazelle, in hopeless play,
Fall in the gorging lion's way,
The desert's royal child.
The vulture, soaring overhead,
With gurgling, gutt'ral-throated cry,
By instinct taught, or habit led,
In aerial circles, spiral-spread,
Winds upward, on ethereal thread,
His prey afar to spy.
The fitful whirlwind, eddying past,
Startles a herd of wild springbok,
Who spread their tails and sniff the blast,
Then bounding o'er the desert vast,
Speed like the whirlwind, hurrying fast,
As from an earthquake's shock.
Then all is stillness! sky and sand
Stretch waste and lonely, bleak and nude;
The wide rotundity around
Yields scarce a breath, and not a sound—
A spell has fallen on the land,
The charm of solitude.
The golden glory of the Sun,
As far athwart the arid plain
His beams are fading one by one,
Sinks low behind the desert dun,
And leaves this waste, that Man would shun,
A desolate domain.
Those fleecy clouds that shone so white
Ere he descended to his rest,
Now glow with splendours wondrous bright—
Green, gold, and sapphire's richest light,
That change their hues and fade as night
Throws shadows in the west.
So sinks the warrior, faint and gory,
And trails a lustre to his rest;
So sank old Egypt, worn and hoary,
And left behind, in name and story,
A trail, a splendour, and a glory
That lingers in the West.
Then softly glides the moon, whose bright
Unclouded beams in splendour reign,
And golden stars with dreamy light
Fill all the deep, the fiery night,
Like locusts in celestial flight
Across the boundless plain.
Now Evening—like a lover's song,
Elate with passion, joy, and pow'r—
Comes stealing gradually along:
The pregnant mind, composed and strong,
Aglow with thoughts that burn and throng,
Is tempered to the hour;
Till silent, soft, I hear the praise
Of Nature's universal hymn!
So sweet a song nor music plays,
Nor falling waters ever raise,
Nor is it heard in earthly lays—
Mysterious and dim!
A strain of heavenly music lies
In all God's universal plan!
From this great world its chords arise—
It lives, it breathes, it clings, it dies!
It echoes in the stars; it sighs
Deep in the soul of Man.
All soundlessly its notes may steal.
All silently may upward rise,
Yet Harmony would nought conceal,
And still some secret sense can feel
Soft music, like an organ's peal,
Ascending to the skies.
And in this dream of solitude
The flame of feeling brighter glows;
No sin, no sorrow shall intrude
Upon the charm of Nature's mood;
But thought, in silence, here shall brood,
And passion know repose.
R. J. T. Jefferson.