Classic Poem

Swift shadows and fierce sun
And sudden rain—
Dried leaves that whirl and find no resting-place—
Sweet hidden streams that run
Out of the hill's heart but to gain
Death in the aching sand—
Veld fires that spring and catch and race
And die down and are done—
Clay remnants, broken in the potter's hand,
Shards on the ash-heaps where the jackal peers—
These—these indeed are one
With the bold hearts unbroken,
These transients for a token
Of all the pioneers.

Have thy keen eyes grown dim
Watching the camp-fires die?
And is the white ash waste within thy heart,
Thy sky
Unto the dead world's rim
Sombre with smoke?
Is aught left of the great hope but dreams that start?
And are thy feet
Sick of the roads and all their dust and heat?
Has man with all the means of him found yoke
To yoke among his sorry team thy fire
Along the trek-tow of his day's desire?
Have they found means—
Out of the dull same meanness of them all—
To stay the grass ash that the veld wind gleans,
To sell him whom the wild holds in thrall?

The veld-gods smote thee keenly, left thee dumb
With love—with terror,—the desire and worth
Of the bare rocks and the dry dust of earth
And the fierce shades that know not whence they come.
Words—what are words to thee?
Where the strange whispers of the waste are born—
There art thou all thyself, and free.
There with thy heart against the crimson dawn
Thou hast wrought out thy dream upon the sky
And taught the dawn-stars of the way to die.

Great joyous heart!
Lone lover of the unkempt hills!
Frail singing harp through whom the swinging winds
Of the burnt veld sweep, as their mystic hand
Sweeps the dead hill-grass
And the blown dry sand;—
Sweet hunter of bright suns and sea-blue skies;—
Hoarder of things heroic, whose far eyes
After strange dreams still farther strain and pass;—
Weaver of wonders, at whose loom
The gleam of red gold and the red gold's gloom
Leap into life;—
Painter, whose canvas is the naked soul,
Whose brush is naked strife,
Whereon heart-hungered and terrific roll
Starlight and dust and shadows and despair,
The whirl and tumult of the rain-rush'd air,
The sting of disappointment;—
Sculptor, whose hands have wrought
Wind into wings and thunder into thought;—
Who on Death's road—by all the flowerless ways he went—
Hath raised great gates of triumph, crown'd above
With calm conviction, underbuilt with love,
And plann'd of human agony that gave
Joy of the dust and gladness of the grave;—

Here, of these things,
Having not flame nor wings,
Take, 'ere the day's needs sever
The heart's harsh songs for ever,
Take, 'ere the songs be done,
This song from me, thy son.