Ziwa, pride of my heart, my youngest and best-loved wife,
Drew me a pace apart, saying: “Husband, ’tis done with life,
Nay friend, shrink not, nor start! lend me your hunting knife!”
Ay! and she lies there dead—and the youths and maidens mourn,
They bury her, so one said, in the cool of to-morrow’s dawn—
For the evil moor-hens keep a watch on this kraal, I know,
And perch when the world’s asleep, on the hut-tops then below.
See! I will kill a sheep to ward off a further blow!
White man, laugh if you will! such tales are for babes, you say?
Have you no God of Ill? Do you not cringe and pray?