Versamelde gedigte

Bayard's call

My boy, that died at Nooitgedacht, used, when the light was dim

And through the trellised stoep vine's gaps the languorous twilight greened,

To ask for that which lifts man's core above earth's carnal rim,

Some thrice-told tale of hero's worth from some old record gleaned.

I told him, when the primrose spread it's tosseled golden glow,

And round the orchard trees the bats came flitting soundlessly,

Of Bayard, knighthood's beautiest knight, and blind old Dandolo,

Of noble names whose sound recalls their soul's nobility.

What if some trifling tremor jars the telling of the tale,

Or passion blent with tears make blurs between the tarnished lines,

Because the gain was loss at length and victory but to fail,

When through the record, twilight-told, the sense of duty shines?

For though no chance to emulate the beauty of their strife,

Nor add a name to swell the list that stirs the soul today,

Be his, he heard at twilight-time, and hearing held his life

Less his than duty's when he dared his hero's part to play.

They shot him when the light was dim, amid the scented thorns

Of Nooitgedacht, that nestle close upon the parklike plain,

There where with floral blue the wild wistarias' wealth adorns

The peaceful blossom-fragranced veld moist with the summer rain.

At twilight when the light is dim and passion holds me thrall,

I walk again the trellised stoep where years ago he trod,

And hear his boy's clear treble tones repeat the Bayard's call;

‘Let knighthood look to Duty, leaving vengeance unto God!’

Jagger-biblioteek, Universiteit van Kaapstad

[p. 508]

 

A lizard basked in the light,

 

Grey, with a yellow band,

 

And pin-head eyes, a sparkle bright

 

Though coloured dark as darkest night.

 

It idled on the sand.

 

And its little tongue so thin

 

Like a lathe of languished grass,

 

Went flickering out and in,

 

Licking the moistened sand to win

 

The mist drops ere they pass.

 

And the little lizard's mate

 

Peeped from beneath a fern

 

Wary, alert, content to wait

 

To drink at leisure and in state

 

Before the sun's rays burn.

Jagger-biblioteek, Universiteit van Kaapstad