The Point of View
From Songs out of Exile by Cullen Gouldsbury
(Fisher Unwin, 1912)
White man, cease from your tales—your God may be good for you,
But think you that aught avails to fashion our creed anew?
We, who are born and bred in the fear of ’Mlimo’s wrath,
Heirs to eternal dread shall we cast our Witchmen forth
To take as a load instead the creed of ye from the North?
Lo! we are born in the fear of wild and unspeakable things;
Born in the Bush land here, where the souls of the dead have wings.
Hovering high in the air where the shades of even fall,