Versamelde gedigte

Pelicans on Ronde Vlei

Like nacre in a shell, the noonday sheen,
Grey pearl with pale caerulean where the sky
Melts in the water's dark translucency,
Glistens upon the shallows: in between
This and the farther shore lies tangled green
Where coots and crested grebes and cormorants ply,
And pelicans with placid dignity,
Their feathers in the midday sunlight preen.
They sail in row, a rank of shimmering white,
Grave, freakish-featured fowls, like those grotesque
Imagined monsters, gryphons mailed for flight
Sculptured on architraves in arabesque -

[p. 465]

 

May solace of such beauty bring surcease

 

From timorous fears in troubled times like these.

Cape Times, 15 Februarie 1943