Then come ye chieftains bold,
With war plumes waving high;
Come, every warrior, young and old,
With club and assegai.
Remember how the spoiler’s host
Did through our land like locusts range!
Your herds, your wives, your comrades lost—
Remember—and revenge!
Fling your broad shields away—
Bootless against such foes;
But hand to hand we’ll fight to-day
And with their bayonets close.
Grasp each man short his stabbing spear—
And, when to battle’s edge we come,
Rush on their ranks in full career,
And to their hearts strike home!
Wake! Amakósa, wake!
And muster for the war:
The wizard-wolves from Keisi’s brake,
The vultures from afar,
Are gathering at Uhlanga’s call,
And follow fast our westward way—
For well they know, ere evening-fall,
They shall have glorious prey!
Thomas Pringle.
THE INCANTATION.
Half way up Indoda[13] climbing,
Hangs the wizard forest old,
From whose shade is heard the chiming
Of a streamlet clear and cold:
With a mournful sound it gushes
From its cavern in the steep;
Then at once its wailing hushes
In a lakelet dark and deep.
Standing by the dark-blue water,
Robed in panther’s speckled hide,
Who is she? Jalúhsa’s daughter,
Bold Makanna’s widowed bride.
Stern she stands, her left hand clasping
By the arm her wondering child:
He, her shaggy mantle grasping,
Gazes up with aspect wild.
Thrice in the soft fount of nursing
With sharp steel she pierced a vein,—
Thrice the white oppressor cursing,
While the blood gushed forth amain,—
Wide upon the dark-blue water,
Sprinkling thrice the crimson tide,—
Spoke Jalúhsa’s high-souled daughter,
Bold Makanna’s widowed bride.