By Veldt and Kopje Part 1

By Veldt and Kopje.

by William Charles Scully.

PROLOGUE.

VOICES OF AFRICA

AFRICA

Sphinx among continents,--the Nations strive To guess my ancient riddle; Greece essayed-- She drooped to death; upon me Rome set gyve-- She sank in her own bonds. The Persian laid His life down 'mid my deserts. For a day I smiled on each, then tore them for my play.

THE SAHARA

The ghosts of buried cities scale the air When Day wakes my mirage. The lion keeps My iron hills. The bones of men lie bare Where my thirst-sickle its rich harvest reaps.

Time, like a little child, amid my sands Builds and unbuilds with feeble, listless hands.

EGYPT

The G.o.ds who dwell 'mid equatorial snows Bade Nilus cleave the waste, and I awoke.

A giant, robed in mystery, I arose; The young world listened, breathless, when I spoke.

My Sphinx Time's sister is; her brood lies hid Where dream the dead 'neath rock and pyramid.

CARTHAGE

Sidon sent forth her sons, her sons sent Tyre; The Desert's daughters bore a mighty race.

The G.o.d whose brazen hands sloped to the fire Reared o'er me the red terror of his face.

Rome, vengeful, trod me to the dust, and strowed With salt the site where once my powers abode.

ALEXANDRIA

The G.o.dlike Alexander wav'd his sword; Beneath its spell rose palace, mart and school, No gold so precious as my lightest word; My logos still the Faith of Man doth rule.

Greek, Roman and Barbarian, East and West, Drank lore like milk from my most bounteous breast.

MOUNT ATLAS

Time haled the great Globe from my aching back And hung it 'mid the stars. Content I rest, The ocean's murmured music at my feet, The foldless flocks of cloudland round my crest.

Pan walks with Faunus through my dreaming woods, And Dryads pace my leafy solitudes.

RUWENZORI

A diadem of changeless snow lies light Upon my regal head; my locks I shake, And, straightway, living waters take their flight.

The iron bonds of Ancient Drought to break.

A virgin, new-unveiled, I stand alone; Aeons will pa.s.s, but none unclasp my zone.

THE LAKES

Hand seeking hand, a peerless sisterhood, We watched for dawn through dark of murd'rous years Our sky-pure fringes mired with human blood, Our rain-sweet wavelets salt with human tears.

Our tideless gla.s.ses gleam resplendently High o'er the rockings of the restless sea.

THE CONGO

Through jungles sp.a.w.ned from fever-drunken sod Where, sleeplessly, the foul man-hunters hide.

The bitter lees from G.o.d's dread wine-press trod By desperate feet, drain down my tepid tide.

Leviathan there wallows in his wrath; There range the hordes of mighty Behemoth.

THE ZAMBEZI

The spoils the sky had of the world-wide main I bear, new-gathered from ten thousand rills To where the thund'rous gates my steps enchain, Clogged with the wastage of a million hills.

Thence, breaking forth in triumph, full and free, I render back my booty to the sea.

ZIMBABWE

I housed the brood of Carthage; they the earth Deep rifled for its treasure. On me fell The hand of Doom. No rumour speaks my birth, No legend shrines my death. My citadel Glares at the cold fane of my obscene G.o.d, O'er which the feet of ancient ruin trod.

THE SOUTHERN DESERTS

The wayward Spring, in dalliance afar, Forgets us for long seasons, till the sky Weeps for our burning woe; then, star on star, Rich blossoms from our glowing dunes arise.

Thirst, with his legioned agonies, still stands Warding the barren empire of our sands.

THE BLACK PEOPLES

G.o.d smote us with an itch to dip our hands In one another's blood. Our long travail The ages hearken to. The ocean sands Than we are not more myriad. Men hale Us forth in chains o'er every moaning sea Foul with the trails of Man's iniquity.

KIMBERLEY

I sprang from 'neath the desert sand, and cast A double-handed shower of living gems I' the world's astonished visage. In my vast Black, echoing chasm, whence the bright diadems Of half Earth's thrones are furnish'd, I can hear The lost souls wander, wailing, far and near.

JOHANNESBURG

A maenad seated on a golden throne; My plaything is a nation's destiny; My feet are clay, my bosom is a stone; The princes of the Earth are fain of me, But, stark, before the splendour of my gates, The grim Boer, leaning on his rifle, waits.

THE WHITE COMMONWEALTHS

To-morrow unregarded, clean effaced The lesson of unhallowed yesterday, We rail against each other; interlaced Albeit are our fortunes. So we stray, Blind to the lurid writing on the wall, Deaf to the words Fate's warning lips let fall.

(1899)

CHAPTER ONE.

THE LEPERS.

"All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be."--Leviticus XIII. 46.

_One_.