And my native land! whose magical name The home of my childhood-the haunts of my prime; And I a lone exile, remembered of none, My high aims abandoned, and good acts undone— With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan, Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side; There is rapture to vault on the champing steed, But 'tis not the innocent to destroy, For I hate the huntsman's savage joy. Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side; By the wild deer's haunt and the buffalo's glen, By valleys remote, where the oribi* plays, Where the gnu,* the gazelle, and the hartbeest* graze, And the gemsbok and eland, unhunted, recline * By the skirts of gray forests o'ergrown with wild vine, In the Vley † where the wild ass is drinking his fill. Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side; * Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively; And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side; The oribi, the gnu, the hartbeest, the gemsbok, the eland, and the springbok are all animals of the genus antelope. Most of them are de scribed in the Penny Magazine, article Antelope. + Vley, a pool of fresh water. The Karroo is a desert plain of South Africa. The Bechuan and Koranna are names of Hottentot tribes. A region of emptiness, howling and drear, Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear Tell to the heart, in its pensive mood, And here, while the night-winds round me sigh, That spread the heavens and heaved the land,— [The Rev. JOHN MOULTRIE, an English clergyman, is the author of My Brother's Grave and other Poems, The Dream of Life and other Poems. They are graceful and pleasing productions, of a pure moral tone, and expressing much tenderness of feeling.] I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old, I cannot say how this may be; I know his face is fair, And yet his sweetest comeliness is his sweet and serious air; The food for grave, inquiring speech he every where doth find. next. He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teaches him to pray; And strange, and sweet, and solemn, then, are the words which he will say. O, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years like me, A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be; And when I look into his eyes, and press his thoughtful brow, I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now. I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three; How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my knee: I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his brother's, keen, Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his has ever been; But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling; And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing. When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street, Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and sweet. A playfellow is he to all, and yet with cheerful tone Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone. prove As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for earthly love: And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes must dim, God comfort us for all the love that we shall lose in him. I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot tell, For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell. To us for fourteen anxious months his infant smiles were given, And then he bid farewell to earth, and went to live in heaven. I cannot tell what form his is, what looks he weareth now, Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow; The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel, Are numbered with the secret things which God will not reveal. But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest, Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast: I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh, But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy forever fresh. I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings, And soothe him with a song that breathes of heaven's divines: things. |