Still are you lauded in song, in legend, picture and story,
Trekkers who with your wagons toiled through intractable plains.
Pillars of cloud through the day and a steadfast flame in the night-time,
Guided the offspring of Israel out of the desert of old:
Not from the earth nor the sky came there a sign to the trekkers,
Hidden spaces with whispers lured and enticed from afar:
Beckoned them on through the desert and over dark mountain ramparts
Stark peaks named of the Dragon—bounding the desolate waste:
Onward through rock-ringed valleys—haunt of the eagle and coney,
Places untrodden by man, to tumult virginal still:
Onward through bush-tangled kloofs, grey gorges and bellowing torrents:
On, to the grass-gladdened plains and shining hills of their dreams:
Onward to broad green pastures, dappled with glimmering woodlands—
Loud with the lilt of water—regions of honey and milk.
Even as bees guard the hive, this radiant soil was encompassed—
Guarded by savages baleful, armed with implacable spears:
But those who, like Israel of old, suffered hunger and thirst in the desert,
Treading the path of peril, were calm and invincible yet:
Fearless they fronted the shock, the shattering onset of spearmen
Avid as ocean's surges to whelm them under its tide,
Till, after battle and toil, when the ruthless savage was conquered,
Peace, like a flower of Eden, bloomed yet again in the land.