Strangle old man—like a lonely hawk
In a leafless forest that falls to the axe,
You linger on; and you love to talk,
Yet your tongue full often a listener lacks.
Truth and fiction, like chaff and grain,
You mix together; and often I try
To sift the one from the other, and gain
The fact from its shell of garrulous lie.
You were young when Chaka, the scourge of man,
Swept over the land like the Angel of Death;
You marched in the rear, when the veteran van
Mowed down the armies—reapers of wrath!
You sat on the ground in the crescent, and laid
Your shield down flat when Dingaan spake loud—
His vitals pierced by the murderer's blade—
To his warriors fierce, in dread anguish bowed.
And now to this: to cringe for a shilling,
To skulk round the mission-house, hungry and lone;
To carry food to the women tilling
The fields of maize! For ever have flown
The days of the spear that the rust has eaten,
The days of the ploughshare suit you not;
Time hath no gift that your life can sweeten,
A living death is your piteous lot.
