Poetry and Sleep

Poems from South Africa

A. Vine Hall

At  Kalk Bay

ASLEEP!    now  dreams  the  curly  head
Of all the  treasures I outspread
Upon  the  shore—queer  ocean things: Blue  men-of-war, all strings  and stings; An octopus;   two  prickly  green
And  swollen fish, aburst  with  spleen.

To bring  them  home,  thine  only care; Of odour  fearsome, nursemaid's glare, Oblivious.   Sobbing  in  thy  sleep!
I,  the  stern  father,  come to peep,
Kiss  thee,  and  place  this  new-bought toy
There—in the bucket—morning's  joy!

When  life's  night  cometh  will the  store That  I have  gathered strew  the  shore? Is what  we rescue  from the  wave
So priceless—worth our  while to save? Does he whose bucket  on the  sand
Is  emptied   by  the  Father's   hand

Lose  aught?      Kindly  is God's  contempt For  man's  upgatherings. If exempt From  heritage  of failing  powers,
No  richer  thou  in  heavenly bowers,
A day  of healthful toil thy  gain,
Not  what  the  bucket  may  contain.

Thomas Pringle

WITH glory of poetic light
The century dawned whose night
Is deepening around us.  Joyful rang
The earth when all those morning stars together sang.
Our Ocean-Mother gave to us
One, not least luminous,—
Pringle, the poet of the parched Karoo.
From thraldom of the "glittering eye" his music drew
Coleridge, who loved its magic well;
E'en Scott beneath it fell,
Forgetful of the Gael and Saxon feud
While listening to that weird romance of solitude.
A fighter thou, with never time
To build the deathless rhyme;
Thine the flung gauntlet of a righteous hate, And thine a flower of song to lone ways consecrate.
Thou singest; we behold the band
Of exiles leave their land:
The fair dear hills of Scotland fade away
For ever!  eyes unused to weeping weep that day.
But hallowed page, and David's lyre,
And thine their hearts inspire.
And now they tread the hot and barren shore; And now, by floods bereft of all their humble store,
Thy pen it is that wins relief.
But soon they lose their chief—
The conquest of the desert has begun,
And a far fiercer fight must by his blade be won:
The battle of the Press. Full sore
The rain of blows he bore!
Fainting with wounds he quits the well-fought field,
But not before the shout telling the foemen yield.
And yet again with gleaming brand,
One of a hero-band,
The word beholds him:  on Oppression’s grave
His hand doth plant the flag that frees the trembling slave.
Hard seems the fate that once again
Forbids the knight to drain
The cup, to feast and grace the board with song, —
Death beckons him:  he glides from that illustrious throng,
Then Calumny, once timorous-tame,
Grew bold and, crawling, came,
With the vile brood that haunts her loathsome cave;
They gibber round and spill their venom on his grave.
“Therefore his life was failure!” say
Those who but count the pay.
Fools even thus: from the world’s poor renown
God ever saveth some for His own hand to crown.
Pringle, we love thy hate of wrong,
Thy simple, heart-felt song!
A knighty soul, unbought, and unafraid;
This country oweth much to thy two-edged blade:
And when the crowds of meanly great
And sordidly elate
Are dust long since forgotten, Afric’s page
Will boast thy name as now—a light from age to age.

The Spirit of the Summit

That path no bird of prey lenoweth, neither bath the falcon's eye seen it."—J0B.
WHERE the desperate grass to the precipice clings,
Where the smoke of the torrent will moisten thy wings,
Past the caves in the crags where the Hurricanes hide,
Daring Adventurer, fearlessly ride.
Onward and upward defying the clouds,
Eluding the lean hands they stretch from their shrouds,
Joyously pass on thy pinions of might,
Seeking the golden pavilions of Light.
Is it love so emboldens—the limitless blue
To voyage, companionless, eager to woo
The Goddess of Fire from her home in the sun,
Heedless of where the round Earth may have spun?
Vainly I dream it! 
Thou never canst rise Half of the distance that Fantasy flies,
Glancing not back till from planets afar
Earth glimmers faintly, a vanishing star!
Plumage of gold in the westering glow;
Thoughts upon rapine and slaughter below;
Of thy blood-sprinkled eyrie bethink thee, and fly,
Ere Darkness shall chase thee in rage from the sky.
Poor Spirit, alas! that my spirit should be
In strength and in feebleness kindred to thee! -
Now rising exultant on pinions of fire,
Now failing and falling, down, down to the mire.

Yea, pity thou me, for not thine the keen pain
Of wings that to reach to the Ultimate, strain:
Thou, happy to sail over mountainous dust;
I, to the Uttermost, longing to thrust

Through showering stars, like adventurous prow
Of some boat of the Ancients, until on the brow
Of ocean there gleam the gold circlet of sand,
And the keel rushes up on Creation's last strand.
Oh!  why am I tortured while watching thy course?
Why the fierce longing? and why the remorse?
Ah!  why the remorse?  O'er the purple ravine
I see thee ascending by pathways unseen,
Nor feel a reproach for not striving to scale
By footholds of sapphire:  then why that I fail
To advance by the more inaccessible way
Of sun-sprinkled Space to the Gates of the Day?
O Desire! art thou prophet or fiend?
Wherefore stand
Solemnly pointing with eloquent hand
Mortals (whose feet are on burial sod!)
Up to the infinite, up to a God?

A prophet I hail thee, and tremblingly cry—
"May we grasp a great Destiny—scaling the sky!"
What is remorse for the failure to-day
But the Voice of Omnipotence saying "Ye may!"

Two Decembers

Now o'er the Homeland dear,
Winter hurls a glittering spear,
While all the furies of the Arctic night,
Following his icy car's impetuous flight,
Scream in demoniac mirth,
As down the blast
They stream, aghast
Stands the fair Earth:
In vain the bowing woods a trembling homage pay;
Groaning, they see their bright wealth whirled away;
He flies o'er the streams, they stiffen!--fields, and lo!
Fear petrifies the clods. 
But hearth-fires glow;
And through long evenings, round the blaze,
Happy children raise
Merry defiance of the blustering king
Whose plans frenzied winds and deep-voiced surges
sing.
Sweet is December 'neath the southern sun :
— The morning music of the wak'ning glade;
The fiery Noon and pine-woods' purple shade;
The timid twilight beautiful but fleet;
The star-eyed balmy night whose gentle feet
Disturb no dreaming flower, so light they pass,
Nor shake one diamond from the dewy grass.
Sweet is December 'neath the
Southern sun, The cloudless blue!
Yet envy not our brighter skies
(Ye who from the ancient Home
May not roam),
Soon smitten through
By shafts of glory, our world fainting lies,  
Craving the storm ye fain would shun,
While yours, baptised with power,
Renews her strength and beauty: blessed dower
After brief trial hour!
And when the blossomed hawthorns throw
On emerald grass their showers of fragrant snow;
When lark, and thrush, and blackbird sing
All the splendour of the Spring,
All the miracle of the living,
And the nightingale's thanksgiving
Carries through the moonlit night
Every-note of day's delight,
In so intense an ecstasy,
Such a rain
Of rapture as to mortal brain
Must needs appear akin to pain—  
England! if now from every shore
Thy sons return in thought once more
To hear the Christmas bells waken thy woodlands hoar,
What then shall be
Their passionate desire for thee—
To kiss thy daisy-sandalled feet,
And their undying love for thee and thine repeat.

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