Versamelde gedigte

The Mission Child

Our fathers held the faith that moved the buttressed mountain wall;
They gave their toil, their self, their soul in pledge at duty's call.
They left their leavened love that clung to Barmen's ivied grange
To leaven yet a greater love than Time itself can change.
They flung the faith that flamed within free to the winds that blow
Across the great ridged Drakensberg's encarmined winter snow,
And where the soft breeze comes tonight, in gusts serenely mild,
It brings a message from the past to soothe the Mission Child.

The south wind wakes from chilly sleep amid the southern floes
And ranges o'er the rainbowed ice whose refuge no man knows;
It hurries o'er the heaving sea to reach Agulhas head,
And greets the Outeniqua's green in stately grandeur spread,
Or on the left, a lighter patch, the long expanse of grey
Whereon Sarepta's grass thatched huts their homeliness display;
It wanders onwards to the north, to Stellenbosch that sleeps
In oak endiademed allure beneath its mountain keeps,
To where the Paarl's grey granite shines dew dappled in the gloom
Of early dawn whose floral air is fragrant with perfume;
To Worcester, nestling on the flat, whose steepled church looks forth
On scarped peaks whose grandeur guards the highway to the north;
It sweeps aslant; the currents cross, but south and east are one,
And east has passed Amalienstein aglint with morning sun,
And glimpsed a moment as it swerved the gap where magical
The midday shadows mantle o'er serene Genadendal.
It hastens on bough-bending strength weighed with the buchu-balm,
To where the Winterhoek looks down on Saron's peaceful calm;
It breasts the ravined Cedarberg whose ravished monarchs bow,
And strokes the sloping tanning sheds in Wupperthal below;
It slithers west, and farther west, across the waste of sand
Where Ebenezer's splotch of green lords o'er a barren land;
Still onward, onward, leagues on leagues, the scrubby uplands through
To meet the sweeping seaward surge of spring engemmed Karroo,
Where Ookiep and Concordia rest, and Kamagas, ablaze
With purple colour proudly splashed, lies in a pearl grey haze;
To Pella and the river bank beyond, to where the way
Leads over ever shifting dunes whose dust obscures the day;

[p. 491]

 

And where it passes, east or west, or north or south, it calls

 

A message to the Mission Child that orders and enthralls.

 

 

 

‘Your fathers found the hidden worth that lies in duty done.

 

They set no store on life itself before the race was run.

 

They championed right and faith and creed unmargined by the rule

 

Of reservations framed to suit the logic of the fool.

 

Despite the doubt, despite the drag of custom or entail

 

They walked their faith-appointed way beyond the farthest pale.

 

Oh, look not for the love that leaps to answer love of yours,

 

Nor deem a lisping gratitude is ashlar that endures.

 

The beauty that the springtime bears is bounty thankless spent

 

That asks no word of recompense, itself its own content.

 

Be yours the labour largely planned with perfect faith begun,

 

And service freely rendered now and duty stoutly done.

 

The homely, humble work of hand that tasks the worker's might;

 

The patient courage of the soul that pants to reach the light;

 

The tested strength that tried by doubt can doubly testify

 

To truth untarnished by the rust of old apostacy;

 

The power to bear the scorn of men whose estimate of worth

 

Is measured by the means to prove ascendancy of birth,

 

Of wealth and rank and power and place. These things are not for you.

 

You are the Mission Child; your task is set for you to do.

 

A simple task, but one that taxes patience, power and pride;

 

To go your way and grasp your work that all and naught beside

 

To struggle through to reach the star that lights the long ascent

 

And learn at last before you die, what Ebenezer meant.’

Jagger-biblioteek, Universiteit van Kaapstad