Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/169

Yet not beside the guarded Cape
His narrowed fancy dwelt;
Not only in the golden grape
Was all the flame he felt.
He knew the thought that feeds and fills,
The ceaseless northward spell;
Three hundred miles to the Copper Hills
Rode Simon van der Stel.

The exiles of the frugal French
A southern refuge sought;
He bade them prove, by hedge and trench,
The skill their fathers taught.
He watched his race of sturdy boers,
He saw their numbers swell;
"Send wives for lusty bachelors,"
Wrote Simon van der Stel.

Full thirty years her quiet charm
The Cape-land o'er him cast,
Till at Constantia's favoured farm
He turned to rest at last.
The builders from the Haarlem wreck
Dug deep and founded well;
But chief of all their work to deck
Was Simon van der Stel.

True statesman of that elder day,
The Dutchman's praise be thine!
Nor lesser claim need Britons lay
To kinship of thy line.