Читать книгу Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs And Religious Beliefs - Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa - Страница 11

THIS I CHOOSE

Oh, give me not the strident, Demon wail

Of penny whistle and tea-chest guitar;

Nor give me tales of those who rode the trail

Deep in the West of far America!

Oh, not for me the songs and nonsense tales

That thrill the modern rabble rout

Who, leaving far behind their tribal vales

With traitor zest, ape ‘culture’ from without!

Rather than the modern crooner’s foreign voice,

Or the loud howls of modern township jive,

I shall leave far behind that mad’ning noise

And hurry home where Tribal Elders live.

There, ’neath baobabs or flat-topped munga trees,

Where nestling birds with many tongues argue,

And flaming aloes bless the smiling breeze

With heady scent; and where the distant view

Of scowling mountains ’gainst the silver sky

With dread and reverence fill the misted eye!

Where, on the gentle slopes of ancient hills there browse

The bearded goats, the sheep, the shambling cows;

And loud above his lowing wives the bull

With awful bellow, dares the distant foe!

There I shall sit before Ubabamkulu

Who shall relate to me the Tales of Yore.

There I shall kneel before the old Gegulu

And hear legends of Those-that-lived-Before.

* * *

There I shall live, in spirit, once again

In those great days now gone forever more;

And see again upon the timeless plain

The massed impi of so long ago!

The words of men long dead shall reach my soul

From the dark depths of all-consuming Time

Which, like a muti, shall inflame my whole—

And guide my life’s canoe to shores sublime!

Clear with the soul’s time-penetrating eye

I shall see great empires rise, flourish and die.

I shall see deeds of courage or of shame

Now carved forever on the Drum of Fame.

With Shaka’s legions I shall march again—

A puppet knowing neither joy nor fear;

Which, trained to kill, heeds neither wound nor pain

And knows no other love save for its spear.

I shall feel once again the searing heat

Of love in hearts that have long ceased to pulse

And with Mukanda shall captain the fleet

Of war canoes; and storm Zima-Mbje’s walls.

Here, in these stories still told by the old,

I feel the soul and heartbeat of my race,

Which I cannot, in tales by strangers told—

For these, within my heart I have no place!

The tree grows well and strong, Oh children mine,

That hath its roots deep in the native earth;

So honour always thy ancestral line

And traditions of thy land of birth!