Gone are those resolute trekkers—pilgrims who passed through the desert:
Vanished the pioneers who strove with its obstinate soil:
Gone, and they gallop no more the plains in the diamond morning:
Clamber no more the koppies watching the set of the sun:
Vanished, they plough no more, they sow not nor gather the harvest:
Linger no more on the stoep while star-buds bloom in the skies:
Never list they to the bleat of flocks that nibble and wander:
Saunter no more in the kraal while milk croons soft in the pail:
Never with prayerful eyes will they search through the passionless heavens,
Seeking for birds that tarry—grey-winged shadows of rain.
Blind to the deluge of dawn and the purple surge of the sunset,
Suns no longer shall smite them, nor ever the moon enchant.
Stern was the conflict and long, but now the desert has claimed them,
Claimed, and taken them proudly—blood and body and bone:
Drops in the sea of its silence, grains on the shores of its vastness,
Merged are they in its fabric—one with the infinite veld.