The Coranna

Fast by his wild resounding river

The listless Córan lingers ever;

Still drives his heifers forth to feed,

Soothed by the gorrah’s humming reed;

A rover still unchecked will range,

As humour calls, or seasons change;

His tent of mats and leathern gear

All packed upon the patient steer.

’Mid all his wanderings hating toil,

He never tills the stubborn soil;

But on the milky dams relies,

And what spontaneous earth supplies.

Should some long parching droughts prevail,

And milk and bulbs and locusts fail,

He lays him down to sleep away

In languid trance the weary day;

Oft as he feels gaunt hunger’s stound,

Still tightening famine’s girdle round;

Lulled by the sound of the Gareep,

Beneath the willows murmuring deep:

Till thunder-clouds surcharged with rain,

Pour verdure o’er the panting plain;

And call the famished dreamer from his trance,

To feast on milk and game, and wake the moonlight dance.

Thomas Pringle.

[Illustration]

SONG OF THE WILD BUSHMAN.

Let the proud white man boast his flocks,

And fields of foodful grain;

My home is ’mid the mountain rocks,

The desert my domain.

I plant no herbs nor pleasant fruits,

I toil not for my cheer;

The desert yields me juicy roots,

And herds of bounding deer.

The countless springboks are my flock,

Spread o’er the unbounded plain;

The buffalo bendeth to my yoke,

The wild horse to my rein;

My yoke is the quivering assegai,

My rein the tough bow-string;

My bridle curb a slender barb--

Yet it quells the forest king.

The crested adder honoureth me,

And yields at my command

His poison bag, like the honey-bee,

When I seize him on the sand.

Yea, even the wasting locust-swarm,

Which mighty nations dread,

To me nor terror brings, nor harm--

For I make of them my bread.

Thus I am lord of the Desert Land,

And I will not leave my bounds,

To crouch beneath the Christian’s hand,

And kennel with his hounds:

To be a hound, and watch the flocks,

For the cruel white man’s gain--

No! the brown Serpent of the Rocks

His den doth yet retain;

And none who there his stings provokes

Shall find his poison vain!

Thomas Pringle.

[Illustration]

THE CAPTIVE OF CAMALÚ.

O Camalú--green Camalú!

’Twas there I fed my father’s flock,

Beside the mount where cedars threw

At dawn their shadows from the rock;

There tended I my father’s flock

Along the grassy margined rills,

Or chased the bounding bontébok

With hound and spear among the hills.

Green Camalú! methinks I view

The lilies in thy meadows growing;

I see thy waters bright and blue

Beneath the pale-leaved willows flowing;

I hear along the valleys lowing,

The heifers wending to the fold,

And jocund herd-boys loudly blowing

The horn--to mimic hunters bold.

Methinks I see the umkóba tree

That shades the village-chieftain’s cot;

The evening smoke curls lovingly

Above that calm and pleasant spot.

My father?--Ha!--I had forgot--

The old man rests in slumber deep:

My mother?--Ay! she answers not--

Her heart is hushed in dreamless sleep.

My brothers too--green Camalú,

Repose they by thy quiet tide?

Ay! there they sleep--where white men slew

And left them--lying side by side.

No pity had those men of pride,

They fired the huts above the dying!--

While bones bestrew that valley wide--

I wish that mine were with them lying!

I envy you by Camalú,

Ye wild harts on the woody hills;

Though tigers there their prey pursue,

And vultures slake in blood their bills.

The heart may strive in Nature’s ills,

To Nature’s common doom resigned:

Death the frail body only kills--

But thraldom brutifies the mind.

Oh, wretched fate!--heart desolate,

A captive in the spoiler’s hand,

To serve the tyrant, whom I hate--

To crouch beneath his proud command--

Upon my flesh to bear his brand--

His blows, his bitter scorn to bide!--

Would God I in my native land

Had with my slaughtered brothers died!

Ye mountains blue of Camalú,

Where once I fed my father’s flock,

Though desolation dwells with you,

And Amakósa’s heart is broke,

Yet, spite of chains these limbs that mock,

My homeless heart to you doth fly,--

As flies the wild dove to the rock,

To hide its wounded breast--and die!

Yet, ere my spirit wings its flight

Unto Death’s silent shadowy clime,

Utíko! Lord of life and light,

Who, high above the clouds of Time,

Calm sittest, where yon hosts sublime

Of stars wheel round thy bright abode,

Oh, let my cry unto thee climb,

Of every race the Father-God!

I ask not judgments from thy hand--

Destroying hail or parching drought,

Or locust swarms to waste the land,

Or pestilence, by Famine brought;

I say the prayer Jankanna taught,

Who wept for Amakósa’s wrongs--

“Thy kingdom come--Thy will be wrought--

For unto Thee all power belongs.”

Thy kingdom come! Let Light and Grace

Throughout all lands in triumph go;

Till pride and strife to love give place,

And blood and tears forget to flow;

Till Europe mourn for Afric’s woe,

And o’er the deep her arms extend

To lift her where she lieth low,

And prove indeed her Christian Friend!

Thomas Pringle.

[Illustration]

THE BROWN HUNTER’S SONG.

Under the Didima lies a green dell,

Where fresh from the forest the blue waters swell;

And fast by that brook stands a yellow-wood tree

Which shelters the spot which is dearest to me.

Down by the streamlet my heifers are grazing;

In the pool of the guanas the herd-boy is gazing;

Under the shade my amana is singing--

The shade of the tree where her cradle is swinging.

When I come from the upland as daylight is fading,

Though spent with the chase, and the game for my lading,

My nerves are new-strung and my fond heart is swelling

As I gaze from the cliff on our wood-circled dwelling.

Down the steep mountain and through the brown forest,

I haste like a hart when his thirst is the sorest;

I bound o’er the swift brook that skirts the savannah,

And clasp my first-born in the arms of Amana.

Thomas Pringle.

THE BUSHMAN.

The Bushman sleeps within his black-browed den,

In the lone wilderness. Around him lie

His wife and little ones unfearingly--

For they are far away from “Christian men.”

No herds, loud lowing, call him down the glen:

He fears no foe but famine; and may try

To wear away the hot noon slumberingly;

Then rise to search for roots--and dance again.

But he shall dance no more! His secret lair,

Surrounded, echoes to the thundering gun,

And the wild shriek of anguish and despair!

He dies--yet, ere life’s ebbing sands are run,

Leaves to his sons a curse, should they be friends

With the proud “Christian men,”--for they are fiends!

Thomas Pringle.

[Illustration]

THE CAPE OF STORMS.

O Cape of Storms! although thy front be dark,

And bleak thy naked cliffs and cheerless vales,

And perilous thy fierce and faithless gales

To staunchest mariner and stoutest bark;

And though along thy coasts with grief I mark

The servile and the slave, and him who wails

An exile’s lot--and blush to hear thy tales

Of sin and sorrow and oppression stark:--

Yet, spite of physical and moral ill,

And after all I’ve seen and suffered here,

There are strong links that bind me to thee still,

And render even thy rocks and deserts dear;

Here dwell kind hearts which time nor place can chill--

Loved kindred and congenial friends sincere.

Thomas Pringle, 1825.

[Illustration]

THE HOTTENTOT.

Mild, melancholy, and sedate, he stands,

Tending another’s flock upon the fields,

His fathers’ once, where now the white man builds

His home, and issues forth his proud commands.

His dark eye flashes not; his listless hands

Lean on the shepherd’s staff; no more he wields

The Libyan bow--but to th’ oppressor yields

Submissively his freedom and his lands.

Has he no courage? Once he had--but, lo!

Harsh servitude hath worn him to the bone.

No enterprise? Alas! the brand, the blow,

Hath humbled him to dust--even hope is gone!

“He’s a base-hearted hound--not worth his food”--

His master cries; “he has no gratitude!”

Thomas Pringle.

[Illustration]