THE SUNSHINE LAND

Blue skies burning above
Leagues of brown earth and sand:
This is the land that we cherish and love,
This is the Sunshine Land.

The grim Karroo is ours:
Whose barren sunburnt plains
Melt suddenly into a mist of flowers
After long-waited rains:

Whose hoarded glories unclose,
At dawn and day's decline,
When sombre koppies are isles of rose
In seas of amber wine.

Our Dragon Peaks that rise
Vast billows foamed with cloud —
Surge, immovably, to the sky's
Shores serene and proud.

No mad tyrants enslave
This land, unfettered are we,
Free as the wind on the veld, or the wave
That frills the skirts of the sea.

Here amid infinite space
May mind and spirit expand,
Making us worthy of time and a place
In this our Sunshine Land.

Her silence sings to the soul:
She beckons with unseen hand
When surly seas bellow and roll
'Twixt us and her bright strand.

Unto this earth we own,
Love, and serve while we live,
Our blood and bone for fountain and stone
After life shall we give.