Versamelde gedigte

A mountain tragedy

A clinging swirl of mountain cloud,
Sodden with moisture, and keen with cold,
Lapping soundlessly, like a shroud
Silently folded fold on fold;
Billows of mountain mist that bend
Tenderly round the touch they meet,
Darkening sun and the skyline's end,
Blurring the feel of the wavering feet,
A moment past and the world was clear,
Beryl above and the brown below,
Splashed with green of the new born year,
Starred with gems where the rock bells grow;

[p. 487]

 

Then in the radiant noonday's shine

 

The heather smiled on the labouring bees,

 

And mountain grasses in ordered line

 

Bent, caressed by the kindly breeze.

 

Sudden, as twilight comes a-crash

 

On the sunset beauty of tropic scenes,

 

The billows of sea mist surge and splash

 

Engulfing the browns and the russet-greens;

 

White and clear in its outer whorls

 

Daintily soft as the drifted snow,

 

Sinuous with its embracing curls,

 

Dark like doom, in the depths below!

 

Where is the trodden path that leads

 

Forward, level, and true to tread?

 

Here - a track through the summit weeds;

 

Here - where the splashed pooled raindrops spread.

 

Onward, aye, for the clinging chill

 

Strikes to the central core of sense,

 

Touching to shiver the nerves that thrill,

 

Testing the force of the heart's defence.

 

Left or right? For the road divides.

 

Damn the darkness that stings the eye!

 

Curse the curl of the cloud that hides

 

Just the turn where the track should lie!

 

Feel with feet for the vanished way:

 

One step farther, the path is met;

 

Here it is, where the smooth worn clay

 

Lightens a little through polished wet.

 

Onward, aye, for the rain beats fast,

 

Gusts of the stinging wind pass by.

 

A sudden south easter that cannot last -

 

The sun's beyond and the pale blue sky!

 

Bended head and the shoulders hunched;

 

Eager stride with the swinging arm;

 

Toes a-work, and the fingers bunched;

 

Coat close buttoned to keep you warm.

 

Sure of the step, for the path seems clear,

 

Level and safe for a perfect stride.

 

Dark beyond with the darkness near,

 

Dark around where the dangers hide.

 

Comes a swirl of the gathered cloud

 

Bringing the darkness closer still;

 

Hides the path as the sheeted shroud

 

Veils the victim of Death's last kill.

 

One more stride and the lowered foot

 

Meets no substance to bear its weight;

 

Suddenly rigid the sinews shoot

 

Trying to stiffen the forward gait;

 

Quick as the light through the void serene

 

Flashes the message from nerve to mind;

[p. 488]

 

‘Brace; beware of the brink unseen!’

 

Clutch what handhold the fingers find!’

 

Quick response by the hands that grip

 

Scarce seen bush or the calm cliff's ledge;

 

Useless vantage! The fingers lip,

 

Cruelly slashed on the sharp stones' edge.

 

One shrill scream that the echoes toll

 

Back to the quiet, billowy grey

 

Whose moistened masses curl and roll

 

Down to the warmth of the summer's day,

 

Where the sloping ledge that juts below

 

Receives its lifeless burdening load

 

Where the stunted buchu bushes grow

 

Half hidden by the drooping cloud

 

Beyond the final effort and the fear -

 

The sense of sure disaster that benumbed

 

The coming pain, came the quick thoughts that veer

 

Towards the long forgotten past, and plumbed

 

The immensity of mind, and held in fee,

 

As children hold the baubles that they prize,

 

Regrets and hopes and muteless agony

 

Above the sharp ecstatic mind's surmise.

 

Old fancies treasured in the tired dreams

 

Of earliest boyhood, bare of sense and bleak,

 

Like bleached bits of colour; strength that seems

 

Transformed to something subtler and more weak;

 

And the more gaudy trappings that the mind

 

Of budding adolescence loves to wear,

 

Keen with its brave desire to seek and find

 

What meaning its new sensed delights may bear;

 

Tumultuous thoughts, crowded into a time

 

So margined that a second seems too much,

 

Yet so expanded that a year's full chime

 

Is trivial for the treasure range they touch.

 

Then comes the dark, more silent and more dense

 

Than the cold mist of but a moment since;

 

And the oblivion of all thought and sense;

 

Of pain that goads the guardian nerves to wince,

 

Of sharp regret and sorrow and remorse,

 

Of suffering and of cumulative sin;

 

Of childhood's weakness or of growing force;

 

Of all desire to vanquish or to win;

 

A calm forgetfulness - the urgent peace,

 

Like sleep that settles on the wearied brain

 

When the sharp inner audient ear cells cease

 

To function and from hearing's work refrain.

 

 

 

Quiet the body lies upon the rock,

 

Crushed on the green the buchu bushes wear,

 

Whose incense as it rises seems to mock

[p. 489]

 

The corpse it perfumes with its floral air.

 

The sea^1. mist billows o'er the steeps

 

And winds its wreathes round stone and tree,

 

And tumbles down into the deep's

 

Enfolding warm immensity.

 

And as its masses wane and fade,

 

The eastern sun glints pierce their edge,

 

To clear away the pall they made

 

Above and round the jutting ledge.

 

Once more, the crisping light conveys

 

A wealth of warmth to greet the green,

 

And shows the tangled mountain ways.

 

And the majestic seaward scene;

 

The slopes, pine studded where the path

 

Goes onward to the fountain's glade;

 

The foliaged kloof's brown aftermath

 

Of winter's hoarding wrapped in shade;

 

The broken boulders, catching glints

 

Of living silver turned astray;

 

The puce and pearl and auburn tints

 

That fleck the farthest lines of grey.

 

Still high above, the mantling mist

 

Obscures the summit of the Face,

 

Where the wet ghosts of whiteness twist

 

And the dark clouds tumultuous race.

 

And higher spreads the curved sky,

 

Serene^2. in amethystine blue,

 

Where two great eagles silently

 

With placid wings their course pursue,

 

And lower far, toward the north

 

The bay sweeps round, a line of white

 

Marks Blueberg strand, and standing forth

 

Behind the ranges ridged with light

 

The peaked Winterhoek, whose rime

 

Has long since left its lordly seat

 

Chafed by the warmth of summertime

 

Out of its rarefied retreat,

 

The Ontongberg, whose magic crown

 

Preserves the secrets of old days;

 

The fretted cliffs that proudly frown,

 

Unnamed, upon the hidden vleis,

 

There range on range and peak on peak

 

Tell of the hinterlands that hold

 

The stored wealth for those that seek

 

Of gathered sheaves and sampled gold

 

And nearer lies the peopled town,

 

Crescentic^3. spread to left and right,

1. In manuskrip: ‘see’.

2. In manuskrip: ‘Serence’.

3. In manuskrip: ‘Crecentic’.

[p. 490]

 

With roofs of thatch or russet brown,

 

And walls a thousand specks of white

 

The rump of hill that sentinels

 

The harbour and the Lion's Head;

 

The aloe shaded slope where dwells

 

The spirit of the Sheik long dead ...

Jagger-biblioteek, Universiteit van Kaapstad