The Poetry of South Africa. Various

THE KOSA.

       Table of Contents

      The free-born Kosa still doth hold

       The fields his fathers held of old;

       With club and spear in jocund ranks,

       Still hunts the elk by Chumi’s banks:

       By Keisis meads his herds are lowing;

       On Debè’s slopes his gardens glowing,

       Where laughing maids at sunset roam,

       To bear the juicy melons home:

       And striplings from Kalunna’s wood

       Bring wild grapes and the pigeon’s brood,

       With fragrant hoards of honey-bee

       Rifled from the hollow tree:

       And herdsmen shout from rock to rock:

       And through the glen the hamlets smoke;

       And children gambol round the kraal,[11] To greet their sires at evening-fall: And matrons sweep the cabin floor, And spread the mat beside the door, And with dry faggots wake the flame To dress the wearied huntsman’s game.

      Bright gleams the fire: its ruddy blaze

       On many a dusky visage plays.

       On forkèd twigs the game is drest;

       The neighbours share the simple feast:

       The honey-mead, the millet-ale,

       Flow round—and flow the jest and tale;

       Wild legends of the ancient day,

       Of hunting feat, of warlike fray;

       And now come smiles, and now come sighs,

       As mirth and grief alternate rise.

       Or should a sterner strain awake,

       Like sudden flame in summer-brake,

       Bursts fiercely forth in battle song

       The tale of Amakósa’s wrong;

       Throbs every warrior bosom high,

       With lightning flashes every eye,

       And, in wild cadence, rings the sound

       Of barbèd javelins clashing round.

      But, lo! like a broad shield on high,

       The moon gleams in the midnight sky.

       ’Tis time to part; the watch-dog’s bay

       Beside the folds has died away.

       ’Tis time to rest; the mat is spread,

       The hardy hunter’s simple bed;

       His wife her dreaming infant hushes,

       On the low cabin’s couch of rushes:

       Softly he draws its door of hide,

       And, stretched by his Gulúwi’s side,

       Sleeps soundly till the peep of dawn

       Wakes on the hill the dappled fawn;

       Then forth again he gaily bounds,

       With club and spear and questing hounds.

       Thomas Pringle.