My homeless heart to you doth fly—As flies the wild dove to the rock,
To hide its wounded breast—and die!
Yet, ere my spirit wings its flight
Unto Death’s silent shadowy clime,
Utíko! Lord of life and light,
Who, high above the clouds of Time,
Calm sittest, where yon hosts sublime
Of stars wheel round thy bright abode,
Oh, let my cry unto thee climb,
Of every race the Father-God!
I ask not judgments from thy hand—
Destroying hail or parching drought,
Or locust swarms to waste the land,
Or pestilence, by Famine brought;
I say the prayer Jankanna[9] taught, Who wept for Amakósa’s wrongs— “Thy kingdom come—Thy will be wrought— For unto Thee all power belongs.”
Thy kingdom come! Let Light and Grace
Throughout all lands in triumph go;
Till pride and strife to love give place,
And blood and tears forget to flow;
Till Europe mourn for Afric’s woe,
And o’er the deep her arms extend
To lift her where she lieth low,
And prove indeed her Christian Friend!
Thomas Pringle.
THE BROWN HUNTER’S SONG.
Under the Didima[10] lies a green dell, Where fresh from the forest the blue waters swell; And fast by that brook stands a yellow-wood tree Which shelters the spot which is dearest to me.
Down by the streamlet my heifers are grazing;
In the pool of the guanas the herd-boy is gazing;
Under the shade my amana is singing—
The shade of the tree where her cradle is swinging.
When I come from the upland as daylight is fading,
Though spent with the chase, and the game for my lading,
My nerves are new-strung and my fond heart is swelling
As I gaze from the cliff on our wood-circled dwelling.
Down the steep mountain and through the brown forest,
I haste like a hart when his thirst is the sorest;
I bound o’er the swift brook that skirts the savannah,
And clasp my first-born in the arms of Amana.
Thomas Pringle.
THE BUSHMAN.
The Bushman sleeps within his black-browed den,
In the lone wilderness. Around him lie
His wife and little ones unfearingly—
For they are far away from “Christian men.”
No herds, loud lowing, call him down the glen:
He fears no foe but famine; and may try
To wear away the hot noon slumberingly;
Then rise to search for roots—and dance again.
But he shall dance no more! His secret lair,
Surrounded, echoes to the thundering gun,
And the wild shriek of anguish and despair!
He dies—yet, ere life’s ebbing sands are run,
Leaves to his sons a curse, should they be friends
With the proud “Christian men,”—for they are fiends!
Thomas Pringle.
THE CAPE OF STORMS.
O Cape of Storms! although thy front be dark,
And bleak thy naked cliffs and cheerless vales,
And perilous thy fierce and faithless gales
To staunchest mariner and stoutest bark;
And though along thy coasts with grief I mark
The servile and the slave, and him who wails
An exile’s lot—and blush to hear thy tales
Of sin and sorrow and oppression stark:—
Yet, spite of physical and moral ill,
And after all I’ve seen and suffered here,
There are strong links that bind me to thee still,
And render even thy rocks and deserts dear;
Here dwell kind hearts which time nor place can chill—
Loved kindred and congenial friends sincere.
Thomas Pringle, 1825.
THE HOTTENTOT.
