Thomas Pringle.
THE CAPTIVE OF CAMALÚ.
O Camalú—green Camalú!
’Twas there I fed my father’s flock,
Beside the mount where cedars threw
At dawn their shadows from the rock;
There tended I my father’s flock
Along the grassy margined rills,
Or chased the bounding bontébok
With hound and spear among the hills.
Green Camalú! methinks I view
The lilies in thy meadows growing;
I see thy waters bright and blue
Beneath the pale-leaved willows flowing;
I hear along the valleys lowing,
The heifers wending to the fold,
And jocund herd-boys loudly blowing
The horn—to mimic hunters bold.
Methinks I see the umkóba tree[8]
That shades the village-chieftain’s cot;
The evening smoke curls lovingly
Above that calm and pleasant spot.
My father?—Ha!—I had forgot—
The old man rests in slumber deep:
My mother?—Ay! she answers not—
Her heart is hushed in dreamless sleep.
My brothers too—green Camalú,
Repose they by thy quiet tide?
Ay! there they sleep—where white men slew
And left them—lying side by side.
No pity had those men of pride,
They fired the huts above the dying!—
While bones bestrew that valley wide—
I wish that mine were with them lying!
I envy you by Camalú,
Ye wild harts on the woody hills;
Though tigers there their prey pursue,
And vultures slake in blood their bills.
The heart may strive in Nature’s ills,
To Nature’s common doom resigned:
Death the frail body only kills—
But thraldom brutifies the mind.
Oh, wretched fate!—heart desolate,
A captive in the spoiler’s hand,
To serve the tyrant, whom I hate—
To crouch beneath his proud command—
Upon my flesh to bear his brand—
His blows, his bitter scorn to bide!—
Would God I in my native land
Had with my slaughtered brothers died!
Ye mountains blue of Camalú,
Where once I fed my father’s flock,
Though desolation dwells with you,
And Amakósa’s heart is broke,
Yet, spite of chains these limbs that mock,
My homeless heart to you doth fly,—
As flies the wild dove to the rock,
To hide its wounded breast—and die!