Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/86

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60
JOHN RUNCIE.

We judge by roaring loom and crowded harbour,
By teeming street and plenteous gear and gold,
Where Greatness dwells; and yet within an arbour
Sits Wisdom as of old.


All men conserve their Faith who, dwelling lonely
In those vast breadths of kopje, stream, and plain,
Fulfil their happiness by reason only
That wealth to them is vain;—


That wealth is vain, and Freedom more than cattle;
Ay, more than life, as when in troubled shires,
Of old were gathered up to awful battle
Our own victorious sires.

John Runcie.