“ Who raised a righteous wail for injured Hindostan.
Let crowding myriads view in tears,
The hero’s grave;
Earth yields to earth; a mortal disappears,
No love can save.
Lost but to sight; in fame alive,
Long shall his name our blinding tears survive,
And numbers from his dust, true virtue long derive.
Repose, great one, in lasting rest
Dear friends among;
What rank, what tribe, what country loved thee best
Remains unsung.
Pride of the Senate and the Bar!
’Tis ours, alas! to wail thy loss afar,
Who ’neath the Southern Cross long hailed thee as a star. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The land’s bright beauties around them rise;
The green hill’s verdure,—the vale’s soft sweep,—
The beetling crag on the mountain steep.
The view sublime o’er the gorges grand,
Where the Bashee winds towards ocean’s strand.
While fountains sparkle—and woodlands wave
O’er the shore that the sea’s blue waters lave.
Alas! alas!—with its beauties rare,
That the war-smoke should blacken a land so fair.
All is not sunshine; storm-winds rise,
And torrents pour from the darkened skies:
Dreary the march o’er the mist-clad heights,—
Weary the watch through the dark cold nights ”

“ I look upon the ocean. Far away,
A fleet of thunder-clouds is sailing by.
High in mid heaven the aërial canvas swells,
And proudly scorns the breeze’s proffered aid;
Instinct with its own spirit’s breath of life,
That bears it onward in its majesty:
While ever and anon the signal flash
From van, and rear, and centre, tells of might
Resistless. Stern, and slow, and dark, and grand,
Its shadows sweep o’er ocean’s heaving billows;
While avant couriers, on the lightning’s wing,
Herald its coming to the distant realms
Beyond the horizon’s verge.
THE THUNDERSTORM AT BATHURST.
’Twas eve ”

“ And the ocean gales have driven our sails
In the midst of the billows’ strife.
To the South from North have we oft gone forth
To sail o’er the bright sunny seas;
We’ve been kissed by an air most pure and fair,
And been lulled by the evening breeze.
Full many a time, in a tropic clime,
We’ve been wooed by the sun’s hot breath,
And mid frozen hail we have felt the flail
Of the Lord of the Ice and Death.
Under stormy skies, amid Nature’s cries,
We have struggled and fought for life,
And then wearied and worn with work well borne,
We have finished our early strife. ”

“ Wake! Amakósa, wake!
And arm yourselves for war,
As coming winds the forest shake,
I hear a sound from far:
It is not thunder in the sky,
Nor lion’s roar upon the hill,
But the voice of Him who sits on high,
And bids me speak His will!
He bids me call you forth,
Bold sons of Káhabee,
To sweep the white men from the earth,
And drive them to the sea:
The sea which heaved them up at first,
For Amakósa’s curse and bane,
Howls for the progeny she nurst,
To swallow them again. ”

“ Thou now hast wakened—and the stirring breeze
Which comes from the northward fills thee with a soul.
Arise, throw off thy shackles and advance—
Among the nations claim thy place, and live!
The time has come to shake off thy dull sleep
Of slavery and apathy: thou wast made to be
A home for millions of the brave and free.
For God has blest thee with a dower of wealth,
Of tree, of herb, of pasture, and of field:
Thy children laugh aloud in jocund health,
And all things men require thy plains can yield ”

“ The gage once taken up, war is not done
Till Hintza’s death, and Gwanga’s gory tide,
And Waterkloof, and many a red hillside,
And burning huts, and savage screams of woe,
Have proved the prowess of your British foe.
Three dreadful wars have Kafir fierceness proved,
And thrice their vengeance sought the white man’s blood;
While thrice their warriors have been taught to know,
How vain their battle against such a foe.
Sir Harry Smith’s and Cathcart’s names rank high
With those renowned in English chivalry,
And many a nameless kloof’s mimosas wave
O’er the brave British soldier’s grave ”

“ Our voyages passed, we sank down at last
As old, tattered, and worn-out sails.
But we now rise again with glad refrain,
We rise in a book of peace,
Amid hymn and psalm, and words of balm,
And a message which ne’er shall cease.
And risen we find our sea is the mind,
Our voyage is fair and free;
Through brain and through soul, we pass to the goal
Of God and Eternity.
Marie.
THE LAST MISSION OF THE SAILS.
The sails of the ships are lying,
White on the floor of the mill,
Scarr’d with the wounds of the weather,
But sweet with the sea scent still. ”

“ Who can bid the lightning speed
From North to South, from East to West,—
A courier swift that asks no rest,
But instant writes command or quest
Where the “ends of the world” may read.
There are spirits of light in the “Dear Old Land,”
Who rejoice when “the Truth makes free;”
Who shout when a nation wakes in might,
And seizes its long denied birth-right,
And prisoned souls burst forth to light;—
O, glorious sight to see!
There are spirits of love in the “Dear Old Land,”
Who weep for their kindred’s wrongs ”

“ Man tunes his song
To soul-enamoured mirth,
Devoid of care and undisturbed by wrath?
Or when with schemes enwrapt in dreams
The young enthusiast on Hope’s golden wings,
By love inspired and ardent fancy fired,
Replenishes life’s cup from pleasure’s springs.
Tell me, then, does Freedom’s spell
Revel in the battle’s knell,
When the trumpet’s tone
Betokens death,
And a soul is gone
In every passing breath,
Whilst war’s loud clangour drowns each wild farewell,
When o’er the grave of the fallen brave
Memory’s bright tribute echoes Glory’s claim? ”

“ And wildly gaze and tremble as they stand;
Till fully scared, with one short cough, again
They sweep like wind across the sounding plain.
Where, mute and lonely on the impending steeps,
The mountain hawk his frequent vigil keeps,
With noiseless pinion shoots into the air,
And sails upon the wind that’s wandering there;
With head oblique he scans his native sky,
Then far below his piercing glances hie
To where his dreaded shade portentous sweeps
O’er wilds, where in the sun the coney sleeps;
With sudden fear the rocks with cries resound,
As dive the furry tribe beneath the ground. ”

“ From Cambria’s vales of beauty,
“Britons” of Britain, come,
Prompt at the call of duty,
With strong right arm “strike home!”
From every mist-clad mountain,
Sons of the hardy North,
From lake, and glen, and fountain,
Come in your manhood forth.
From Eastern fen and plainland,
From Western tarn and fell,
From islet, rock, and mainland
The nation’s gathering swell.
“We come!” in tones of thunder,
Rings echoing round the land;
“We come!” ”

“ Through the rough rocky kloof into grey Huntly-Glen,
Past the wild-olive clump where the wolf has his den,
By the black eagle’s rock at the foot of the fell,
We have tracked him at last to the buffalo’s well.
Now mark yonder brake where the bloodhounds are howling;
And hark that hoarse sound—like the deep thunder growling;
’Tis his lair—’tis his voice!—from your saddles alight;
He’s at bay in the brushwood preparing for fight.
Leave the horses behind—and be still every man ”

“ With light unwelcome should illume
The drowsy couch, and chide the gloom
Of some voluptuous sluggard’s room,
And chase his idle dreams?
Shall thirsty nature pant in vain
For showers of life-restoring rain;
Shall desolation sweep the plain
And beauty droop and die;
Lest one bright drop’s exultant spring
Should snap the spider’s airy string,
Or dim, perchance, the golden wing
Of some gay butterfly?
Shall yon glad stream, whose sparkling tide
Spreads verdant beauty far and wide,
O’erleap its banks and turn aside,
Or in the desert sink ”

“ The kloof or bush was still the Kafir’s hold;
They sought not battle in the open field,
But used the weapons cunning loves to wield:
To lie in wait, to strike a sudden blow
Of ambushed vengeance on a dreaded foe;
With poisonous lies to sue for speedy peace;
To plot more murder in a brief release;
To pause, to strike with double force the blow;—
The flaming homesteads light them to their foe ”

“ Bold Beresford lingered, while loudly the bugle was sounded,
And turned in his saddle to take a last look at the foe.
A trooper’s horse dropped; its rider lay stunned for a minute—
But quick as the lightning the storm-cloud in summer reveals,
A voice cried, “Come, quick! see the stirrup—now set your foot in it—
And jump up behind, for the devils are close to our heels.” ”

“ The distant thunder sounding,
And from the mountains, far and near,
The headlong torrents bounding.
The jackal shrieks upon the rocks,
The tiger wolf is howling,
The panther round the folded flocks
With stifled gurr is prowling.
But lay thee down in peace, my child,
God watcheth o’er us ’midst the wild.
I fear the Bushman is abroad—
He loves the midnight thunder;
The sheeted lightning shows the road
That leads his feet to plunder:
I’d rather meet the hooded snake
Than hear his rattling quiver,{34}
When, like an adder, through the brake,
He glides along the river. ”

“ I watch the vulture sailing as he circles in the sky,
The ostrich stalking o’er the wilds—the springbok bounding by.
The wilderness! The wilderness! ’Tis where the lion roars;
And whence the wasting locust-flood its living torrent pours:
With rushing ruin on their wings, its myriad myriads sweep,
Like waters from the mountains, or the surges of the deep.
The wilderness! The wilderness! The desert blast is there;
And the sun sends down his fiery rays with fierce and blinding glare.{78}
’Tis there the infant whirlwinds their new-born vigour try ”

“ The vulture’s voice screams harshly, as he sights his prey on high;
The bursting meteor echoes from the regions of the sky.
A thousand insect voices, with their thousand notes are there;
With chirrup, ring, or buzz of wing, they fill the sounding air;
And waking fancy starts to hear the trumpet’s note afar;
The pibroch’s martial gathering, the barbarian’s cry of war.
But the wilderness has lessons: in danger’s lonely hour,
How weak man’s solitary arm! How vain his boast of power!
The humbled spirit learns to look for Heaven’s protecting care;
Is safety in the wilderness? ”

“ As the tall forest trees bend their heads ’neath the breeze,
So our team breasts the steep with a labouring wheeze;
Then down the long slope in a sinuous race,
They scamper along at a bullock’s best pace;
Wo-haa! shouts the driver. Wo-haa! for the sake
Of the small Tottie leader with scarcely a rag on,
Who capers and hoots, gamely striving to break
The headlong descent of the good Ox-wagon. ”

“ Away they go, ’midst mist and sudden gale,
O’er stormy seas, through Biscay’s Bay they sail.
The sun is covered by dark lowering cloud,
And heaven seems hidden in a dusky shroud.
Hark! the huge vessel felt the thund’ring stroke,
While whelming waves in sudden deluge broke;
The seas around for horrid vengeance rave,
And every yawning gulf now seems a grave.
Again—the storm is o’er, with steady breeze
They glide in safety upon summer seas,{103}
Whose azure surface as a mirror tries
To catch the sunny radiance of the skies. ”

“ Nigh forty men to one,
We vainly scanned the darkling waste
Ere twilight should be done;
As waif on the wide ocean,
Looks for the rescuing sail,
When dim shades sweep the surging deep,
And louder roars the gale.
Behind the western ridges
The sun’s red lamp sank down,
The twilight shadows seemed to cast
O’er all a threatening frown;
We gazed with mingled feelings
On the last-fading beam,
Should we, too, lie ’neath the cold grey sky,
Stark in the dawning gleam? ”

“ The oceans which this Cape for ever lave
While time shall last is that great sailor’s grave;
And Nature’s self proclaims his honours here,
By such a monument o’er such a bier.{104}
Along the coast they sail. With pleasured eyes
They view new shores—new hills, new plains, arise,
The Cape St. Blaise and Longkloof Mountains past,
The hoped-for, longed-for haven comes at last;
Then, ’midst the glories of an April day,
They cast their anchor in Algoa Bay,
Whose outstretched arms receive in their embrace
Those dauntless settlers of a Northern race. ”