The Poetry of South Africa. Various

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AFAR IN THE DESERT.

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      Afar in the desert I love to ride,

       With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:

       When the sorrows of life the soul o’ercast,

       And, sick of the Present, I cling to the past;

       When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,

       From the fond recollections of former years;

       And shadows of things that have long since fled

       Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead:

       Bright visions of glory—that vanished too soon;

       Day dreams—that departed ere manhood’s noon;

       Attachments—by fate or by falsehood reft;

       Companions of early days—lost or left;

       And my native Land—whose magical name

       Thrills to the heart like electric flame;

       The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime;

       All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time

       When the feelings were young and the world was new,

       Like the fresh flowers of Eden unfolding to view;

       All—all now forsaken—forgotten—foregone!

       And I—a lone exile remembered by none—

       My high aims abandoned—my good acts undone—

       Aweary of all that is under the sun—

       With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan,

       I fly to the desert, afar from man!

      Afar in the desert I love to ride,

       With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:

       When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,

       With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife—

       The proud man’s frown, and the base man’s fear—

       The scorner’s laugh, and the sufferer’s tear—

       And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,

       Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;

       When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,

       And my soul is sick with the bondsman’s sigh—

       Oh! then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,

       Afar in the desert alone to ride!

       There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,

       And to bound away with the eagle’s speed,

       With the death-fraught firelock in my hand—

       The only law in the Desert Land!

      Afar in the desert I love to ride,

       With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:

       Away, away, from the dwellings of men,

       By the wild deer’s haunt, by the buffalo’s glen;

       By valleys remote where the oribi plays,

       Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest graze,

       And the kùdù and eland unhunted recline

       By the skirts of grey forests o’erhung with wild vine;

       Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,

       And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood,

       And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

       In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his fill.

      Afar in the desert I love to ride,

       With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:

       O’er the brown Karroo, where the bleating cry

       Of the springbok’s fawn sounds plaintively;

       And the timorous quagga’s shrill whistling neigh

       Is heard by the fountain at twilight grey;

       Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,

       With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;

       And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste

       Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,

       Hieing away to the home of her rest,

       Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,

       Far hid from the pitiless plunderer’s view

       In the pathless depths of the parched Karroo.

      Afar in the desert I love to ride,

       With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:

       Away, away, in the wilderness vast,

       Where the white man’s foot hath never passed,

       And the quivered Coránna or Bechuán

       Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan:

       A region of emptiness, howling and drear,

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