THE VELDT FOLK.
In these great spaces they abide for ever,
Nor may they hive in cities even as we,
Whose toil from crowded shire and teeming river
Finds markets over-sea.
Nor they, like Israel whom the Lord befriended,
With flock and herd and bountiful increase,
Were searched by war, that so when war was ended,
All men might dwell in peace.
Upon their lives the sun and moon slow-swinging,
Through days and years o'er vast, untroubled skies,
Have wrought an affluent peace, a love fast-clinging
To freedom large and wise.
By narrow laws we judge the farmer people,
Whose larger outlook we would fain gainsay,
Even as we fain would coop beneath a steeple
The God to whom we pray.
God gave the Law in lightning and in thunder,
To that lost nation bann'd and unredeemed,—
A pastoral people, whom He swept asunder
Because of Baal they dreamed.
Even so to these, the Veldt Folk, God hath given
The near communion in His Temple vast,
Wherein He speaketh yet, in awful levin,
And in the thunder blast.
