Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/226

And shall yon willow, fain
At the stream's glass to deck her bending head,
Droop o’er its empty bed
Her budding boughs in vain?

The winds on circling wing
Through the wide heaven seek for thine hidden track:
Baffled they turn them back,
And dust is all they bring.

Or should the southern gale
From ocean's fields have filched a cloudy flock,
With barren mist they mock
The thirst of hill and vale.

Or if on fiery noons
Some thund’rous pile a tragic front uprears,
In a few blistering tears
Its brief-lived passion swoons.

Art thou forever fled
In wrath for gifts misspent by men of yore,
Heedless to catch and store,
Thy showers freely shed?

Nay then, too angry rain,
With pity for earth’s blameless herbs be stirred:
For sake of beast and bird
Come back to us again!

Come back! and coming bring
No scanty dole meted with miser hand,
But to the beggared land
A bounteous largess fling.