Tu n'auras pas semé ta couronne étoilée
Sur le miroir tari du ruisseau de tes jours.
Toute pleine de jours, toi, tu t'en es allée
Et ton frais souvenir en scintille toujours.
The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
That morning, when my wife eloped
With James, our chauffeur, how I moped!
What tragedies in life there are!
I'm dashed if I can start the car.
Tradition, thou art for suckling children,
Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;
But no meat for men is in thee.
Then --
But, alas, we all are babes.
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
To the Rev. Canon Fisher
Pretoria
The night before we're shot
We shot the Boers who killed and mutilated
our friend (the best mate I had on Earth)
Harry Harbord Morant
Peter Joseph Handcock
Imagination cannot rise above thee;
Near and afar I see thee, and I love thee;
My misery away from me I thrust it,
For thy perfection I behold, and trust it.
Oh how oft I wake and find
I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
Thou it is that wakest me.
Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,
To read it well - that is, to understand.
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
