Читать книгу The Poetry of South Africa - Various - Страница 26

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A rugged mountain, round whose summit proud

The eagle sailed, or heaved the thunder-cloud,

Poured from its cloven breast a gurgling brook,

Which down the grassy glades its journey took;

Oft bending round to lave, with rambling tide,

The groves of evergreens on either side.

Fast by this stream, where yet its course was young,

And, stooping from the heights, the forest flung

A grateful shadow o’er the narrow dell,

Appeared the missionary’s hermit cell.

Woven of wattled boughs, and thatched with leaves,

The sweet wild jasmine clustering to its eaves,

It stood, with its small casement gleaming through

Between two ancient cedars. Round it grew

Clumps of acacias and young orange bowers,

Pomegranate hedges, gay with scarlet flowers,

And pale-stemmed fig-trees with their fruit yet green,

And apple blossoms waving light between.

All musical it seemed with humming bees;

And bright-plumed sugar birds among the trees

Fluttered like living blossoms.

In the shade

Of a grey rock, that ’midst the leafy glade

Stood like a giant sentinel, we found

The habitant of this fair spot of ground—

A plain tall Scottish man, of thoughtful mien;

Grave but not gloomy. By his side was seen

An ancient chief of Amakósa’s race,

With javelin armed for conflict or the chase,

And, seated at their feet upon the sod,

A youth was reading from the Word of God,

Of Him who came for sinful men to die,

Of every race and tongue beneath the sky.

Unnoticed, towards them we softly stept.

Our friend was rapt in prayer; the warrior wept,

Leaning upon his hand; the youth read on.

And then we hailed the group: the chieftain’s son,

Training to be his country’s Christian guide—

And Brownlee and old Ishátshu side by side.

Thomas Pringle.