Classic Poem

Where the high-veld breaks to valley —
Deep ravines where hill-streams sally —
Stands a kaia looking Northward through the mountains to the plain.
To the careful hearts that tender
Roses glowing — roses blowing,
Gold and white and redly showing —
Well you know the way to render
Thanks to them who guard your growing by your hope of Home again!

Red and white and gold-leaf'd roses
Growing where the lizard dozes —
Blue-tail'd lizard lazy dozing in the dazzle of the sun —
Now your distant England freezes,
But Inyanga lends you breezes —
Sun-warm'd winds that pass with singing —
Hill-cool'd winds for ever bringing
Scents of honeysuckle clinging to the stoep-poles, tambu spun.

Other English flowers mottle
Half the garden, near the wattle —
Green-grey wattle gaily growing on the margin of the pond;
But, cool roses, I am thinking
You mean more than all the others
To the English. You are linking
Half-lost thoughts that Afric smothers
Of the skies where stars are blinking in the white-edg'd Isle beyond.

For the sleepy sun goes Westward,
And the far fish-eagle nestward,
And the errant longings linger on the land where they would be;
Just a moment is allotten
For the longing, rose-begotten —
Cruel roses, memory-waking, —
Memory-waking, but unslaking,
Of the love-days, half-forgotten, and the folk across the sea!