The Bechuana Boy
I sat at noontide in my tent,
And looked across the Desert dun,
Beneath the cloudless firmament
Far gleaming in the sun,
When from the bosom of the waste
A swarthy Stripling came in haste,
With foot unshod and naked limb;
And a tame springbok followed him.
With open aspect, frank yet bland,
And with a modest mien he stood,
Caressing with a gentle hand
That beast of gentle brood;
Then, meekly gazing in my face,
Said in the language of his race,
With smiling look yet pensive tone,
"Stranger -- I'm in the world alone!"
"Poor boy!" I said, "thy native home
Lies far beyond the Stormberg blue:
Why hast thou left it, boy! to roam
This desolate Karroo?"
His face grew sadder while I spoke;
The smile forsook it; and he broke
Short silence with a sob-like sigh,
And told his hapless history.
"I have no home!" replied the boy:
"The Bergenaars -- by night they came,
And raised their wolfish howl of joy,
While o'er our huts the flame
Resistless rushed; and aye their yell
Pealed louder as our warriors fell
In helpless heaps beneath their shot:
-- One living man they left us not!
"The slaughter o'er, they gave the slain
To feast the foul-beaked birds of prey;
And, with our herds, across the plain
They hurried us away --
The widowed mothers and their brood.
Oft, in despair, for drink and food
We vainly cried: they heeded not,
But with sharp lash the captive smote.
"Three days we tracked that dreary wild,
Where thirst and anguish pressed us sore;
And many a mother and her child
Lay down to rise no more.
Behind us, on the desert brown,
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poem by Thomas Pringle
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