Classic Poem

The Path

There is no music in this empty tale,
No voice of girls and children — scarce a note
To break the vast monotony of plain,
The league long lengths of lank and wither'd grass,
The great grey granite peaks of barren stone,
And low hill-ranges thinly clad in thorn,
The gnarled inondo and umsasa scrub,
All wash'd with yellow sun and dry with age;
All brooding, drowsing, dreaming through the days, —
The idle days that watch the suns go down,
That see the lion stalking in his strength,
The throbbing-nostril'd antelope; — await
Sleep-careless for the changing of the year;
Scarce wake they from their sloth to change the leaf —
The spring scarce wakes the young grass from the ash
Of that that went before.

Such are these days,
And yet, towards the South, I see a dust;
I hear a sound of axes and of tongues,
A beat of hammers, and the roar of trains;
I see the glint of roofs, the smoke of fires,
Embankments, bridges, roads, and rising towns
The brown veld fades away, and sinks, and hides;
The game draws back, the lion is no more,
The long grass yields to plains of waving corn,
Th' untrodden wilderness is fill'd with men.

Back with the game go they whose pristine step
Made this thing possible; back to the wild
They slink ashamed; they are not wanted here.
Theirs was to find: They found: their use is done,
Their life is now fulfill'd, and they grow old.
Proud have they grown, and poor. They that have pray'd,
Their prayer is answer'd: let it be enough.
They that slept these years beneath the stars,
Let them do so forever — if they will,
They are not wanted here, for they have changed;
There is some lymph of lion in their blood;
Some taint of savagery — seed of the wild
And barren harshness of the wilderness.
They are not as we are: their ways are crude,
And sometimes thankless even for the crumbs
Our coming brings their way. They cannot dress —
Bah! let them go .... And back, in truth, go most
Till all the dust and tumult fades behind,
And they have found their Love: the Outer Wild.

I scarce speak of these men, though in some way
I am connected with them: let it pass.
And now behold, a rough and dusty road,
The stumps still standing where marula grew —
Stumps worn and ragged by the wheels that pass'd,
And splinter'd by the hoofs of ox and ass
That bore a burden to the farther parts,
And stones lie on this road; scarr'd, jolty stones —
Sure reading that the hand of man was weak
Though valiant; and that where it could not make
A perfect road-way for its master's foot
Yet strove and made a roadway all the same.
And here the roadway dips into a spruit,
A little donga angled with the hills;
And here the road is washed with summer rains,
And corduroy'd at the stream with poles and grass
That bank the water to a tiny dam
Where cattle drink and waterlilies float.
Good ground for camping on that neck beyond:
Yea, we will camp; the sun has nearly gone,
And thirty Kafirs straggle out behind,
Their packs but ill-adjusted, and their feet
New to the road, their shoulders to the weight.
Though Salisbury is but half a day agone,
Yet will we camp, and better face the morn.

Alas, for those that know it not — the joy
Of happy-sleepy nights upon the veld!
Where is the bed of all the nights I know
Like that beneath the stars? When all the sky
Is deep far velvet, and the fires burn
Lisping a low-heard murmer to the trees
That weave a leafy network on the blue.

Less than a day from Salisbury, yet we made
Our foremost scherm of the days to come
Under the trees we wrought: their boles were spann'd
With branches of Umsasa and of thorn.
Full merry were the axes and the shouts,
And swift our scherm rose of new-cut boughs
Sweet-smelling of their sap, and soon was built.
Then gleam'd a dozen fires in the gloom,
They that had gone for water soon returned,
Ufu and salt is doled, and pots are boil'd,
The black men eat their sadza , and the white
Attacks his bully with unfeign'd zest,
And soaks a shard of biscuits in his tea.
Good is this meal — yea, good; and good to hear
The chatter of the boys; and best of all
A well-earn'd pipe of dry Magaliesberg —
Most fragrant of tobaccos. Then to roll
Onto the coarse brown blankets that are spread
Over a sheaf of grass ...

Then one by one the carriers lie down,
Their voices die; and soon the soft-air'd night
Is still but for the murmer of the fires.
Some owl, mayhap, is hooting in the bush,
And far, far, off a jackal howls aloud.
But from the night-thieves we are safe in here;
No stealthy foot will cross this ring of boughs;
The craven jaw that snatches at a hand,
Or steals a chicken, or a boot or skin,
Will never enter here. The spotted paw
That rips away a face, or flays a dog,
Is safe outside. The sudden yellow flash —
That gleam of suppleness and fear made flesh
That scatters twigs and embers in it's fall
And leaves an empty blanket by the fire —
Dares not (or seldom dares) to leap the ring;
And we are safe. And the long day is done.

See you the dawn —
The gold dawn over the neck?
Awake, for it is morn,
And pack your kit and trek!

Bright is the dawn,
And the birds wake there on the neck;
Fresh is the early morn,
So pack your kit and trek.