Читать книгу The Poetry of South Africa - Various - Страница 22

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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.