Wait for me Time
Wait for me, Time, while I catch my breath.
I would not fall fainting into the arms of death
From running to overtake the things undone,
The people unfriended, the songs unsung, the tasks
Not ended, music unheard, words unspoken,
The gardens untended, tools unmended, broken.
And I’d like a little time to bask in the sun
And dream in the shade under a tall tree . . .
Wait for me, Time, don’t rush me off my feet!
When death and I meet I would have it be
With dignity, fulfilled, serene, complete.
Dorothea Spears
Waldorf
Why sob the fiddles so tonight?
Kaleidoscopic crowds float in and out;
Glasses tinkled; red lips smile and pout,
The café thrills with laughter and light.
Why do the fiddles sob as they play?
Pretty waitresses on quiet feet
Glide to and fro. They pause to drink and eat
And flirt, the crowds and go their way.
The fiddles sighs, so end the score.
Talk dwindles while the noisy throng applauds
The song they have not listened to, the frauds!
But I, who heard, do not encore.
They feel, the sympathetic strings,
The heart-ache under the laughter, so they cry
The understanding fiddles, questing why
The ache must dwell in the heart of things.
Laugh, saxophones, but you cannot drown
The cry of the weeping fiddle in my ears.
My lips laugh, too, but my heart is full of tears
And Life is a broken-hearted clown.
Mowbray, C.P.
Waning Moon or Waking Day - Who Can Say?
Now is the time of the merging of light into light,
When day slips out of the night
As noiselessly as silence and the white
Moon holding her high place
Fearlessly comes face to face
With the rising sun, paling in his embrace:
And the worried vole creeping across the lawn
Is baffled as the dappled fawn,
To tell the light of the moon from the light of the dawn.
--Dorothea Spears
Waste No Beauty
Here Beauty's prodigal; her phials are filled
To overflowing all the glowing year . . .
Shall we not drink ere it is spent or spilled,
This elixir that costs so many dear?
This beauty is our own for but the taking
Come, press your lips against the brimming phial
And dream that there will be no end, no waking,
No limit to abundance, no denial.
Oh rich South Africa! Oh lovely land!
We fill our senses, touch and taste and sight,
With deep delight − and see the slipping sand −
And blind our minds to fast approaching night.
Today the draught is free. Drink deep! Drink deep!
Not yet, not yet Macbeth has murdered sleep.
Dorothea Spears
Ways
For many years he studied deeply, thought
Profoundly, meditated much to gain
Serene detachment such as sages sought,
Remain impervious to passing pain
And pleasure; seeking (Oftentimes in vain)
His goal, the silent centre of the soul
Of all, wherein to live and serve and reign,
An integrated atom of the whole.
He trod the Noble Middle Path between
The pairs of opposites, untouched at last
By mundane matters, cool detached, serene,
And undisturbed by future, present, past.
Rebirth and karma conquered, this man kept
Detachment’s way. But Jesus, the Christ, wept.
Airlie Close
Constantia, C.P
We Build A Nation
(Variation on a Popular Theme)
We build a nation, blend and integrate
City and country, field and flock and mine
To an enduring edifice of State –
But we must follow the Architect’s design.
We build a nation: let us not forget
The strains and stresses which it must resist
Across the years. What amateur can set
These lasting lines with inexperience first?
The law behind the laws must be obeyed
And what is built in haste will not endure
The test of time, though mighty its façade,
Nor shall its tenants ever be secure.
We build a nation: the corner stone must be
Justice, and the mortar Liberty.
We failed in love
Had we not failed in love
Somehow, somewhere,
We should not lack it now.
For there's a pattern in the woof
And warp that's proof against
The fabric’s fallibility.
The ultimate design
Is fine, retains a sequence
And remains
A logical effect of cause
With laws inflexible
Eventually. The answer
Sensually, is to release
More love
If we would have more peace.
Dorothea Spears
We have need
Yes, we have need of another coming.
Yes, we have need of another birth.
All the wires of the world are humming
With news of this unquiet earth.
All the wires of time are taut
Ready to snap with the weight of fear
And force and frustration they carry, caught
In this saturated atmosphere.
Yes, we have need of another star
To show the way to the lost goal;
A vision, a hope, an Avatar
To heal this ailing planet whole.
Dorothea Spears
'We Meant So Well'
Not the sins internationally committed;
Not the selfishness consciously applied -
(We can wear the caps that we have fitted,
Accept the consequences of acknowledged pride.)
It is the well-meant acts gone bad that gall us.
The milk of kindness soured, the help that harms a man -
These are the things that disconcert, appall us
And leave us limping where we confidently ran.
Dorothea Spears
We Mustn’t Waste Unhappiness
Something there is we must learn
From each unhappiness in its turn
Or it will be wasted.
It would be a pity to waste so many tears
And so much suffering
Across the chequered years.
B.F.H 12.3.73
We, Humanity, Evolve - Or Do We?
We, Humanity, have circled this little globe of ours at will
And brought our carriage back to earth again
Unharmed from hitherto unconquered outer space.
Ourselves in orbit, we, the Human Race.
Are there banners flaunting in the daily papers,
Bonfires burning on our hilltops to acclaim
Humanity's outgoing, circling, safe returning?
What other news is news beside this move in evolution's game?
Or are our little minds too small to dare to share
The glory of this heritage of God created men,
Because we are afraid our little way of life
So comfortable, so tailored-to-fit the little soul
Might not survive the mighty concept of the unimprisoned whole?
To what great heights Humanity could take this civilization
Were we not trammelled by our crippling, ancient,
Outgrown, artificial barriers of self and separation
Which could destroy us, still, before we reach the goal
Of this, our one Humanity's, potential destination.
Weather Prophets
Everybody said that it would be
A bad winter. Everybody said
The winter would be bad. But you can see
How wrong they were. The weather's soft as silk
And full of sun, and winter half done,
With everything anticipating spring
Except the poplar trees, who always doubt
What other trees say, and will put out
No flaunting flags to flap on a grey day
If there's the faintest chance of frost about,
Whatever oaks or calendars may say.
Untrusting trees, to doubt such plausible skies
And yet, a change of wind could prove them wise.
Dorothea Spears
Wonderful—the spider, throwing her gossamer thread
Again and again and again across the gulf of space
From out herself, until it is anchored overhead
And she ascends, and spins from within the intricate lace
That makes the pattern of her web. ...
More wonderful is the soul flinging intangible thought
Again and again and again beyond the uttermost star
Until upon some pinnacle of Heaven caught
It climbs to God and sees the planets as they are,
Outwits the flaming sword of ancient Adam’s curse
And weaves of thought the pattern of the Universe.
Weep for ourselves!
When Force becomes the arbiter no man
Is safe. A pointed gun, a flashing blade
In one man's hand - and history is made
And ‘finis’ written to a mortal span.
However powerful there's no logic can
Refute the hand of violence when laid
Upon the heart, yet man has been betrayed
By force disguised as friend since time began;
Weep not the dedicated man who goes
Fulfilled to immortality to keep
A tryst with martyrs. Rather weep for those
Who stay. The well of violence is deep.
This sip of gall appalls us now - who knows
How deep we'll drink? For us, my people, weep
Dorothea Spears
Weeping Weather
I was shaken awake by the sound of weeping,
Hurried heartbeat tripping over the sill
That separates the waking and the sleeping,
Making contact with the conscious will.
I stumble into consciousness, aware
Of steady sobbing robbing sightless night
Of silence, as insistent as despair,
As inescapable as breathing’s flight,
Beating, beating against the drum of the ear,
Inexorably beating against the brain,
Imperative and desolate and near…
Can it be the beating of the rain?
Hush, my heart…It’s only the skies that weep…
Slip back over the threshold into sleep.
Avondster, Klein Constantia Rd,
Constantia, C.P.
Welcome to A Prince
No Englishman am I, though English loam
Has bred my forebears, which I grant with pride,
(Though in the farthest countries some have died.)
I, too, have been a wanderer, the dome
Of Heaven my roof, but now no more I roam.
Within this lovely land, thrice satisfied
My heart has come to rest, my feet abide,
And this South Africa’s my only home.
Yet when with dawn I heard the bells evince
Old England’s joy in paeans gay and clear,
Triumphant through the clouds of doubt and fear
That have been gathering round her skies long since,
I will confess my eye concealed a tear
And from my heart I cried, “God bless the Prince.”
“Oaklands”
Newlands Ave, Newlands, C.P.
Welcome to June
Tomorrow June will be here…
It scarcely seems a day
Since I said goodbye to April
And took the hand of May.
Before I tire of June
July will find me here –
The months trip by so soon –
And only twelve in a year!
Each month has her own beauty
And sings a different song
And brings a different duty,
And none can tarry long.
June brings the longest nights
With wind and rain in her hair
And homing birds’ flights…
She weeps the branches bare.
But bring she joy or sorrow
I’ll take June by the hand
And bid her a good morrow
And welcome to this land.
Avondster
Constantia, C.P.
WERE I A PROPHET
Not for me the sort of God that holds
A brief for borders and passports and enfolds
A given people in a given spot
All hemmed about with signs of Thou shalt not.
A brief that bids the elder brethren guide
The younger, yes, but not as deified
By some celestial difference that ordains
That they shall always have superior brains.
Were I a prophet I should choose a peak
Where all the world must hear the things I speak
And blast the arguments that rationalise
Our mean desires and blind our ready eyes.
For how can heaven hope to fit an earth
Where money is the measure of man’s worth?
And how can men construct a holy fane
Upon foundation stones of self and gain?
For Love is indivisible forever—
Transcendent immanent and altogether.
West Facing
The ample windows in my room
With ivory Venetian blinds, face west.
From my pillows I can see
The tall trees at the end of the garden
Catching the sun in their varied leaves
While I am still in shade.
But my bathroom door and window are looking east
Waiting for sunrise;
So I have stood a Cheval mirror by the wall
To frame the door and window and reflect
The rays of the rising sun into my room
And into my eyes where I lie dreaming
Or trying to put my thoughts in words
Worthy to share the beauty of this world.
Now, late Summer, the sycamore tree
Has erected a lattice of green leaves
Between the eastern sky and me,
But early this morning the sun
Probing the summer screen
Found a crevice and shone,
Reflected in the mirror,
Into my waking eyes
That had been looking west and the light
For a dazzling moment flashed
On the glass and splashed in broken rays
Of colour enveloping the room and me
In unexpected ecstasy.
My life faces west, too
But I have fixed a mirror on the wall
And leave the door behind me open,
Meonstoke House 13.9.81
What boots it to remind us Time is Fleet?
What boots it to remind us time is fleet?
The alloy of impatience taints our gold
And tarnishes the happiness we hold,
This Now. This moment that should be replete
And self-sufficient in its present sweet
Is cankered ere its beauty can unfold
By him who wields the scythe, and we grow old
To the insistent tread of muffled feet.
Nay, rather it were better to forget
Within the certain arms of fair today.
How soon, how sure and soon the sun will set.
‘Twere better to pursue our even way,
To close our ears to Time’s incessant threat
And leave to June what proved too much for May.
Veritas
Constantia
What Happened?
Do you remember that brief interlude
After the last world war? Peace was good.
It didn’t matter if I were in Africa
And you in England. It didn’t matter.
You were only a day away
And little enough to pay to reach your side:
The world seemed to have shrunk, that was so wide,
After the war. And for a day
Or a year people seemed to care
For people – it didn’t matter where.
People were more to people than things
For a year or two. And we all had wings.
We almost believed the Millennium
Was about to come, and that the Phoenix would rise
From the ashes of the war, and lead us to Paradise.
Hatred was not the fashion, then,
And for a time it almost seemed that men
Were becoming brothers and could understand
Each other, and go forward hand in hand
To the Promised Land…Words, written or spoken
Multiplied, became accessible,
And it was easy to exchange a thought or a token.
The postman kept our contacts in repair
All over the world at a price we could afford.
And somehow there was time and money to spare
For unremunerative beauty, stored,
That we had never had time to enjoy before.
“From each according to his ability;
To each according to his need.”
We said… What happened?...When came personal greed
To supercede our brief philanthropy?
Alas! Today we feel we cannot cope
With the vast despair that is eating up hope.
They tell us that man, in his inter-stellar race
Has all but annihilated time and space,
That you and I will travel sometime soon
To visit Mars, or Venus, or the Moon…
But you and I are farther apart, my friend,
In England and Africa today than when
The war came to an end.
What is ‘I’?
I am . . . but what is “I” −
This physical body with its physical needs
And senses and mechanism, its appetites and greeds?
I think it is not so
For I can stand apart, dissect, and watch it go.
− This quick emotional body with its smouldering fires,
Its joys and sorrows, loves and hates, and motivating desires?
No . . . since I can stand apart and see it glow.
− This mental body then, expressing itself through physical brain;
Observing, exploring, creating − in beauty and in bane?
But lo . . . I stand aside and watch it think to know.
Mature I should discriminate, co-ordinate
And integrate the bodies all, and coolly dominate,
And find at length perhaps the ultimate why . .
But where and what is "I"? −
Dorothea Spears
What is beyond beyond?
What is beyond beyond?
We talk so glibly, now,
Of “why?” and “when?" and “how?”
Having the crass temerity to say
We stand on the verge of knowing all today.
Today, or tomorrow perhaps, we shall know
From whence the galaxies come and whither go
And how and what and why
Creation is the ultimate reply;
And whether a bang or a steady state
Conditions the universe, and time, and fate,
And whether the limitless will contract or expand.
Is willed or happens, random or planned
As if the finite could ever comprehend
The infinite, beginning, end.
All facts collected, correlated, conned
The question remains - what is beyond beyond?
Dorothea Spears
What Kindled Thy Love, Oh Heart
What kindled thy love, oh heart of mine?
A spark from the flame of Love Divine.
It blew one day from the fires of God
And fell on the lonely path I trod.
And all at once the sun was high,
And countless bird songs filled the sky:
And beauty filled the heart of me
And I came, and gave it all to thee.
And thou hast treasured the God-lit whole
Till a wealth of interest floods my soul.
The sun is lower, perhaps than then,
But shadow is sweet to tired men:
The countless birds trill a softer song
As the shadows of life are growing long;
But the beauty that came to my life that day
Has grown into Heaven along the way.
What Must I Do?
‘Ah, Friend, what must I do
To prove my love for you is true?
I have made sonnets, lyrics, songs in Rhyme,
And sung sweet ballads, vainly all this time:
To prove my friendship true,
What must I do?’
‘Friend if you would prove true,
Go, cease your songs, and do
Real things: go, love where love can gain you naught;
And when unselfish love your soul has taught
Shall be made known to you
What you must do.’
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
What Must I Do?
‘Ah, Friend, what must I do
To prove my love for you is true?
I have made sonnets, lyrics, songs in Rhyme,
And sung sweet ballads, vainly all this time:
To prove my friendship true,
What must I do?’
‘Friend if you would prove true,
Go, cease your songs, and do
Real things: go, love where love can gain you naught;
And when unselfish love your soul has taught
Shall be made known to you
What you must do.’
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
What Profit?
What does it profit any man to gain
The whole world whether he lose his soul or not?
What does any man want of a world, the vain
Unendurable pain of it, plot and counter-plot?
What does It profit any man to own
A lion's share, to be a kingly beast
And stalk the jungle regally alone,
The fangs of his fellows sharpening for the feast?
What does it profit to build on the safest beach
A castle of sand? The ocean is patient and strong
And though men lie awake at night will reach
The closest castle and level it with a song.
We barter peace; for profit we die to defend,
And what does profit profit a man in the end?
Dorothea Spears
What Will You Remember
Now that we have parted, what will you remember
In the long evenings when the summer sun
Is slow in setting, or when late December
Moons across the sky their journey’s run?
Will you remember the passion and the sorrow?
Will you remember the parting and the pain
In the long evenings of some far tomorrow?
Or will you remember just some old refrain;
Some quiet beauty, or some twilit hour
Of understanding, mute companionship,
Fraught with the fragrance and the subtle power
Of love that had no need of passioned lip?
Will you remember, aye, you will remember;
Whether you would or no, you’ll not forget…
But will it be the fierce flame or the ember
That haunts you when December suns have set?
When Autumn Sets A-Flame The Fading Year
Why is it, when Autumn comes, my dear;
When days draw in, and mist in the eyes of night
Makes stars less distant, and the softer light
Of sunshine kinder – why is there a tear
Behind the laughter of dancing leaves, a fear
That darts out unexpectedly at sight
Of glowing trees and vineyards burning bright
When Autumn sets a-flame the fading year?
Is it this surfeit of beauty that catches the throat?
Or sense of loss that so much beauty must pass?
Or the intimation that all who love must part
Some day that startles a tremor in the note?
Is it the shade of a cloud that darkens the grass,
Or the shadow of death falling across the heart?
When I am Tired
When I am tired I love to think
Of friends I know are always true:
With pleasant themes they somehow link-
And that is why I think of you.
For I am tired, and darker thoughts
Will strive to enter, but will rue
Their presence, and will flee, when caught
Amid these brighter dreams of you.
For when I think of you, I know
That you are pure, and good and true,
And therefore must my thoughts be so
Whene’er I think of you.
The Epworth Press
1925
When I no Longer Hear the Laughter Lilting in the Stream
When I longer hear the laughter lilting in a stream;
Nor flowers singing in the garden when I pass;
When I no longer find a shelter in a dream
Or make a magic carpet of mown grass:
When misty mountain moves me not,
Nor the contouring of cloud;
When I no longer find cool comfort in a tree,
Nor kinship in a tempest tumultuous and loud –
Quickly sew a shroud and bury me.
When I can trace no minarets or steeples landscapes in a cloud
Nor feel the balm abiding a living tree:
Should I shun solitudes, or cavil at a crowd –
Quickly sew a shroud and bury me.
Nor feel the healing hand of a happy tree,
When I forget my kinship with the scurviest crowd –
Quickly sew a shroud and bury me.
When I sit at your feet
When I sit at your feet, my Beloved,
And at the feet of Him who watches beside you,
I am a little child,
Sitting in the sun
And the petals of the flowers that is my heart
Spring open in the sunshine of your lovingness
When I look in your eyes
And in the eyes of that other,
There is no fear in any world,
Nor any hunger.
When One Goes Forth
When one goes forth into the Great Unknown
Alone
Wrap the cloak of your love about his heart
Lest he be cold
Setting out so suddenly apart.
But do not hold
The cloak too tightly with your grief,
Only with your memory
And let your tears be naught but dew
To comfort you
And give your dearth relief.
And keep the candles of your faith alight
To guide the way
And make the pathway bright.
Remembering the beauty of the day
Do not hold him at the end
But wrap the cloak of your love about him, so −
And let him go, my friend; Let him go.
Dorothea Spears.
26/6/59
When we are children we write
(If we write at all) as children.
A bird is always a bird, it’s true,
And Spring is always Spring and Autumn Fall;
The sky is always high and grey and blue.
When I was a child I read simple rhymes
That any child can love and understand,
And walked through fantasies and facts and times
Beside my father, hand in guiding hand.
But grown-ups tire (or should) of childish games;
Outgrow the obvious words and ways of youth.
And language learns a hundred different names
And images to reach a hidden truth.
Maturing mind must seek and stretch to find
Not only beauty, but the truth behind.
Airlie Close
Constantia C.P.
When We Rode Into The Dawning
When we rode into the dawning
Of an East African day
Our path was paved with splendour
-we rode a royal way.
The pineapples, like guardsmen
In starlight, unbending line
Stood by strict attention,
Their jewelled swords a-shine.
While over all the bushes
The loyal spider folk
Had flung their cloth of silver
And caught within its yoke
A million sparkling dew-drops
Of diamante a-gleam
To make the gossamer fabric
A Cinderella’s dream.
The flowers their phials had broken
In homage at our feet
Of their allegiance token,
Till all the air was sweet.
And as we went a-riding
To seek the fabled North,
Beneath a golden banner
The sun himself came forth.
But jealous of our greeting
He pulled the clothes to shreds
And snatched away the jewels
His subjects bowed their heads.
The leaves and little grasses
Bowed humble heads, all mute.
The guardsmen stood unbending
With bare blades at salute.
The glory had departed:
The glamour crept away.
Like dreams, the splendour faded
In the garish light of day.
Where I Live
If you should ask me where I live I would say –
Between a Fairyland and a Fairyland…
Where the path called the Solent is silver
Or jade or blue or grey
According to the time of the year or the day,
Or a mirror to reflect
The lights that flicker and play
From the Fairyland where the tall chimneys stand
Shoulder to shoulder, low and high,
In a fascinating pattern, and pennants of flame
Fling their challenge against the sky
And the clouds take up the challenge…
From the Fairyland where the serried chimneys rise
Shoulder to shoulder, high and low,
And cylindrical shapes silver in the glow
Beyond the river’s mirror where the lights
Of far-travelling ships come and go
And seem so near on clear nights.
(and yet – sometimes I feel, when the mists drift
Over the land and the sea increasing the sense
Of mystery, half concealing, half revealing
The beauty of the design as they close and lift,
This Fairyland is nearer the inner sight.)
Looking the other way
Across the path that is called the Solent, I see
Or think I see sometimes,
A fairy island calling to me
With fairy houses and lights that glitter at night,
And silent fleets of little ships that ply
This way and that… and great ships going by.
But sometimes there is nothing at all
Except a pall of grey sky.
If you should ask me where my house stands
And I should answer truly, I would say
“Between two Fairylands.”
Brownwich Farm House
Titchfield, Hants.
WHERE THE VALLEY IS BLUE
The Glen, Groote Schuur
I know a spot where the valley is blue
And earth is a fairy place,
And all up the glen, when the sun breaks through,
The flowers laugh into God’s face!
I know a spot where the valley is blue
In a gown of hydrangea lace.
Always I’ve thought, and it still seems to me
That blue is God’s dearest shade;
For blue is the sky and blue is the sea,
The greatest things God has made.
And ever and ever God seems to be
A-walk in my azure glade.
Oh! Blue and as blue as the Heaven’s own hue
Is the glen at Groote Schuur place
When Christmas adorns all the dingle anew
In her gown of hydrangea lace.
I know a spot where the valley is blue
And the flowers laugh into God’s face!
Which Hand Will You Have?
How should poets know what sort of song to sing
When May brings Autumn in one hand, and in the other Spring
And when the Lady June, with smiles and tears, discloses
In one hand Winter berries, and in the other roses'.
How very tantalizing for lovers to discover
The longest day in one hand, the longest night in the other.
Dorothea Spears
White Flowering Peach
Who is this lovely stranger standing at my gate,
Holding in her hands the happiness of Spring and youth,
The aura of a purer world about her
Detached, serene, inviolate as truth?
She is a virgin bride arrayed in white for her lover.
She is a maiden veiled for confirmation
About to share her mystic first communion.
She is the flower of youth chosen for the sacrifice
With mystical elation
In her eyes.
Oh, she is purity personified. She is the soul
Of unpolluted beauty, immaculately whole!
And I, who gaze,
Reflected in her joy am luminous with praise.
-Dorothea Spears
White flowers at night
I will plant me flowers of white -
And on a silver moonlit night
Shall stand at my door and see
The light reflected back to me
Against the darkness of the trees.
Against the greens that turn to black,
I shall feast my eyes on these
And hesitate to turn my back.
I shall hesitate to go
To bed, I know, and leave them there
Molding the moonlight in their bands,
Holding the moonlight in their hair.
I shall stand and stare . . . and stare . . .
Dorothea Spears
Whither?
Where are you going, brother, what is your way?
Or are you just being carried along
By the others, the millions of brothers,
Singing a marching song
To keep your courage high the lifelong day?
I watch you rushing by −
Hurrying, hurrying, hurrying . . faster, faster −
Why?
Will you not stay
And tell me where you are going, friend
Or do you know?
Or are you simply obeying some unseen master
That bids you go and go and go − To what end?
And do you travel for love or lust,
Because you will it . . . or because you must?
Dorothea Spears
Who Made Demos God?
Who made Demos god?
Demos
Shall we worship him?
Being part of Demos shall we dare
To share the sceptre of the Universe,
The glory, the despair?
Who made Demos god -
Demos?
How far he has travelled since the days
Of Eden, Eve and Adam
By what devious ways.
Who made Demos god?
Demos
Shall we worship him?
Dorothea Spears
Who shall say what Beauty is,
Or where a man may find it? ’
This we know—it comes, it goes
And none may bind it.
He must
sacrifice the rose
Who fears too much the thorn;
Beauty is not bought nor sold—
Beauty is born.
Whoever Finds Fulfilment
How much of common happiness they
miss
Who cannot see, who will not recognise
The common ownership of joy and bliss
And beauty, ancient secrets of the wise.
When fortune smiles on friends I sometimes
think
My pleasure is greater than when luck is
mine –
I lift the glass of happiness and drink
Their health in rare and satisfying wine.
I may not even know them save as part
Of this humanity that holds us tight
In one embrace, unconscious heart to
Heart;
But all can share in everyman’s delight.
What matter if success should pass me by?
Whoever finds fulfilment, so do I.
Why Cry For Death
Why cry for death, you who have failed the earth?
Think you that death will solace all your ills,
Atone for wasted years of living dearth?
Think you that death the empty vessel fills?
Nay, death is no magician to transmute
The tinsel of the earth to heaven’s gold:
Who waver on the earth’s irresolute
Can scarce expect that death will find him bold.
We graduate from earth when we have learned
Her lessons. He fares ill who goes before,
For no promotion waits that is not earned –
And death is just, who opens earth’s last door.
Then cry not death as an escape from strife.
Till you have taken your degree of life.
Veritas, Constantia
Why Do You Not Sing?
Why do you not sing, Theophilus?
Why 'do you not bring
Your Muse to sup with us
As you were wont to do,
Declaiming thus and thus
The metre goes - as one who knows
Catching the Rhythm flowing through
The insubstantial air,
A crotchet here, a quaver there?
And flowers and trees and birds would wing
Across the listening skies
Reflected in your voice and in our eyes
As if you surely knew
The Open Sesame to Paradise.
Why are you mute, Theophilus?
What sorrow stills your lute?
Is it that the magic-makers
Vanish, Science silenced, from the earth
And only the very young and the earth forsakers
Remember the ancient mirth?
Dorothea Spears
Wild- Flowers In A Letter
Snowdrops and violets, primroses and ivy –
England has come to my desert room!
A breath from cloistered Oxford,
A glimpse of a lane where the wild-flowers bloom.
A breath of Spring has sweetened my Autumn,
A touch of mist has tempered the sun,
A rain wind has swept my dusty aloes
From a land where Spring has just begun.
Snowdrops and violets, primrose and ivy
Fall from your letter, dead and dry,
But they live in my heart’s tear-watered places
And the fragrance clings as I lay them by?
The fragrance lingers, and Mother England
Presses my heart and soothes its pain
And whispers “Child, cease thy vain regretting,
You shall come back to me again.”
“A little while and you shall wander
Happily, in Death’s second birth,
Under my towers, beside my meadows,
Over my crocus carpeted earth…”
Snowdrops and violets, primroses and ivy –
I shall be kin to them very soon:
I shall be one with the wind that loiters
Up Addison’s walk in the hush of noon.
Winter
I could be one with the gale
And race through the fearful night
With the rain and the wind and the hail,
Faster than birds in flight,
Swifter than eagle or swallow
Over the land and the sea
Where only the spirit can follow,
Untameably, mightily free!
I could delight in the tempest
Were it not for the part of me
That shivers and cries and cowers
In a thousand makeshift shelters
Through hungry, unthinkable hours.
Dorothea Spears
Winter is in the Sky
Winter is in the sky: the sullen clouds
Huddle together, the sport of a jeering wind
That herds like sheep the discontented crowds
In a sodden mass, while the sun cowers behind.
The grey sea sulks and snaps at the wind’s heels
Like an angry dog, baring its white fangs.
The mad wind laughs derisively, and reels
Towards the shore, where the menacing surf hangs.
Bare branches shudder against the winter sky
And clutch at the leaves they have clung to overlong
They crouch as the ruthless wind goes hurtling by,
Roaring his raucous Bacchanalian song
And he laughs with Mephistophelian glee
As he strips the last lone leaf from each naked tree.
Winter Landscape – Constantia
The aloe hedge
Has burst in spires of flame
Along the vineyard’s edge:
And rising high
The blue-grey smoke of poplars
Is etched against the mackerel-patterned sky
Of Cape July
Golden Showers of orange flame festoon
The hours of Winter afternoon.
The shabby oaks still flaunt
Their smouldering leaves
Despite the taunt
Of winds that whistle through the eaves
And blow
Poinsettias to a scarlet glow.
Red and orange berries burn
Across the valley, and Hot Pokers spurn
The earth with fierce desire…
Everywhere I turn,
To compensate for Winter’s woe,
Nature paints in fire.
Cape Times Magazine
“Veritas”
Constantia, C.P.
Winter night
Why, to-night, should the hand of the wind on the latch
Of the door, and the sound of the rain on the thatch
Be more than I can bear?
Why should I care,
To-night, when I have not cared before
That no-one is there?
The flashes whisper in the grate
Their passion being spent
And the hour late.
And the wind knocks at the gate.
Dorothea Spears
Winter Trees
(Kensington Gardens)
While there are trees to lose their leaves
Like these
And etch their tracery
Of twigs against a dappled sky
Of grey and lapis lazuli,
And paint long shadows on the grass
That mark time’s passing by –
While there are winter trees to sleep
And keep their secret deep –
Although Death seems
Triumphant
Faith will never die...
Nor men’s dreams.
Winter Wind
What seek you here, you keening winter wind?
You cry and cry, and rake the fallen leaves
With frenzied fingers, and the Poplar grieves
And murmurs softly how you were unkind
To tear the cloak that Autumn had designed.
The birds complain that you have swept the eaves;
The spider, troubled, pauses as she weaves …
What is it that you seek and never find?
Is it summer so incessantly
You cry… her warm embrace … her glances bright-
Some souvenirs discarded in her flight,
Perhaps? Poor, Wind, through eternity
Shall you go crying vainly through the night
And sobbing down the valley to the sea.
Winter’s Fist
Winter closes his fist across the sky
And dwarfs our bleak horizon with his grey
Unyielding fingers, wringing from the day
Tempestuous tears: the keening winds cry
In sullen fury: all the world’s a-wry.
Yet how minute to stellar watchers say,
This storm which blinds us, shutting us away
From the immortal sun’s unchanging eye.
So sometimes sorrow closes round the soul
Blotting out infinity. Grey pain
Limits our horizon: all in vain
We lift our eyes, for trouble takes such toll.
And yet the sun knows neither wax nor wane,
Could we but stand apart and see life whole
Winter’s Night
All night long I heard the feet of the rain
Marching, marching along the mirrored street
In rhythmic beating, ever and again
Stampeding as if on terror-driven feet.
All night long I heard the voice of the wind
Moaning and sighing among the naked trees;
The suddenly shouting, in a furious, blind,
Unreasoning rage, its wild hyperboles!
All night the tireless feet of the rain marched past;
All night I heard the unhappy wind cry:
Until the pale and tear-stained face, at last,
Of Dawn crept timidly into the weary sky.
Wintry Day In Spring
How much more coldly strikes a wintry day
Once Winter’s bade farewell, and friendly Spring
Has set the timid poplars burgeoning
Who will not let leaf till all the oaks are gay.
How much more bleak is, after blue, the gray
Of stormy skies, how much more keen the sting,
When daisies in the sun have had their fling
With zephyrs, of the gales that Spring betray.
So does life inured to wintry skies’
And blustering winds feel not the cold wind’s smart
But goes, well wrapped, upon its fearless way,
Until Love’s Spring, with zephyr-gentle sighs
Has promised Summer and disrobed the heart :
Then coldly, coldly strikes the wintry day!
“Without Vision”
God has given man a world to play in,
Has brought conveyance to his very gate;
But the puny soul of Man prefers to stay in
His small back yard of Race or Creed or State.
Without Vision People Perish
So many teach so many ways these days
To cross the space between the womb and the tomb
That all the old well-trodden paths are blurred
By criss-cross short cuts, where the lost word
Is never heard, and feet falter and stray
Having no proven guide to whom to pray,
No lode-star in a world reduced to facts
And acts (and since men can’t reduce the soul
To fit computers, souls are out of date
Of late), We lose the concept of the whole
Amongst the multiplicity of creeds
And ends and means and sciences and needs,
And falter and fall or stumble about in doubt.
How can we tread the tightrope of life without
A point on which to pin our eyes, a goal
Immutable, to which this living leads?
Airlie Close
Constantia C.P
WORDS
Words are magic things. They are as bright
As gold and silver, and as cold as steel;
As warm as sunshine, as austere as light,
As quick to cover up as to reveal,
As fickle as the moon on cloudy night.
Words are tragic things – as soft as silk,
As rigid as an unforgiving heart;
As light as thistledown, as white as milk;
As heavy as the breast when lovers part.
Words are cruel things, and words are kind.
Words are poignant as a first love’s tears,
As sweet as children’s laughter; as resigned
As age, and that deep lull when, after fears,
The storm declines: as fathomless as mind.
Take care…….Take care……..Words are such potent things!
Words can break a heart or make it whole.
And War and Death and Desolation spring
From fires that words have kindled in Man’s soul!
Words and Winds
Words are like the wind, like the wind
Blowing over fields of snow
Or fields of clover,
Thick with scent or thinned
To icy sharpness, blowing over
Fields of blossom or of snow,
Words are like zephyrs; words are gales
Tempered by the desert or the ocean
Over which they blow
And set in motion
Weather that sings and weather that wails.
Words are winds blowing over the heart.
And as the heart is so they heal or hurt
Or sooth or smart.
12.8.60 This is the 137th day of the State of Emergency in South Africa.
WORDS ARE WINDS
Words are like the wind,
like the wind
Blowing over fields of snow
Or fields of clover.
Thick with scent or thinned
To icy sharpness, blowing over
fields of blossom or of snow.
Tempered by the desert
or the ocean
Over which they blow
And set in motion
Weather that sings or
weather that wails.
Words are winds blowing over the heart
And as the heart is so they heal or hurt
Or soothe or smart.
Words for Opus 48 of Mendelssohn
Now comes the lovely Lady Autumn
Clad in her robes of golden light
With all the blessings of the Harvest fraught,
Scattering her bounty till the beauty blinds our sight.
See, in the woods, where she has walked the hills
The scarlet and gold that flames on every tree!
See, where her feet have trod, the way with colour fills
And we are one with earth in ecstasy.
What though the year be dying, let him die, my dear ones,
We shall return in beauty, thou and I!
Now comes the lovely Lady Autumn
Clad in her robes of golden light
With all the blossoms of the harvest fraught,
Scattering her promises to sweeten Winter’s night.
Well, Autumn certainly seems to be the favourite season of my Muse! I hadn’t written anything for months, except a 250 line poem on The Vlei. What I shall do with it I don’t know, but there is a satisfaction in doing it, and perhaps, after the war – who knows? But these Autumn verses force my hand: they are determined to be written, and looking back though my press clipping book I find that it has happened before to some extent. This year I feel with Edna St, Vincent Millay in God’s World. Do you know it?
“Oh, World, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this; Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart – Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.”
1944
Words for Wonder
The beauty of this world is so intense
That I am beggared trying to portray
In words the wonder that I see and sense,
The finite splendour on this infinite way.
Words to fit the wonder! Words so high,
So, deep, so vast, so tender, grave and gay
To match this mountain etched against the sky.
To catch the tempo of those clouds at play,
The crystal's mute minute perfection clear,
The folded flower unfolded to the day:
The wordless music of the atmosphere
That blends and binds the spirit with the clay…
And man himself, whose, consciousness expands
To hold the universe within his hands!
Words Have Depth
So many depths there are within a word:
Some deep enough indeed to drown a man,
While one man skims the surface undeterred
And swims to shore as swiftly as he can
Unconscious of the depths, unrealizing
The danger and the darkness and the light,
Unsensing secret subtleties surprising
The one who plumbs the depth and scales the height.
One sees the surface of the Christmas story
And deems the word a pretty fairy tale
Nor ever dreams the truth, the gleam, the glory.
Beneath the letters where the senses fail.
The old word Christmas, given, bought and sold,
For one holds tinsel and for one holds gold.
Dorothea Spears.
Words have ghosts
There are too many ghosts of words said
that should not have been spoken.
When one plays the lover
they hover over him in the bed
and the spell is broken.
You did not know, nor I,
that words cry
after the bitter echo is dead.
Dorothea Spears.
Words Like Oracles Have Many Meanings
The apprehended is seldom understood.
The Word Itself is twisted by the word,
The Good corrupted by the will to good:
The Truth behind the truth remains unheard.
Can God be cupped in words for all to sip
Without contamination from the cup
That’s passed from age to age and lip to lip
Of different taste… is purity to sup?
It is significant that One came
And wrote no word, who knew the subtle mind
Of mortal man, bequeathing tongues of flame
Not written documents to guide mankind.
No cup of words can satisfy or reach
The urgent inner thirst of all, of each.
Cape Times Feb’ 1960
Veritas, Constantia, C.P.
Words… Words…Words
What are words to you?
I have seen them flying from your mouth
To travel east and west
And north and south.
Sometimes they as soft as dew …
I’ve seen a drooping blossom lifts its head,
Revived to beauty by the word you said.
Words…
Sometimes you open your mouth
And arrows poison-tipped are sped
To goals unguessed
And soaring doves lie dead.
Avondster
Constantia C.P.
World of Wonder
Sometimes the door opens and men, passing by,
Catch a glimpse of another earth, another sky,
Transfigured for a startled moment to behold
The hidden world of wonder waiting to unfold.
If only arrogant man could find the lost key
To open the door at will, and set his spirit free
From the prison he has fashioned to keep his pinioned soul
Unconscious of the beauty, the truth of the whole.
Dorothea Spears.
11.7.1966
“World’s View”
(September 1930)
Immense and brooding spirit, do you rest
Within the confines of your narrow vault;
You who knew no rest in life, no halt
In the fulfilment of your dream; whose quest
Of Empire never ceased; at whose behest
A country sprang into being? Now the fault
Of Kruger on your life work makes assault;
Immense and brooding spirit, do you rest?
Provincialism has us by the throat.
Your mighty dream of Empire we have lost,
That dream for which you, counting not the cost,
Adventured selflessly; and small minds gloat
On the achievement of their petty aim.
The Lion Rampant now is hunted game.
“Handsworth”, Devonport Road
Tamboers Kloof, Capetown.
Worship
When the light within meets the light without
And around and about and above
And knows itself at one
With the indivisible energy of love:
When immanence meets transcendence
The infinitesimal spark the infinite flame,
There is no dark, and the infinite
Has no need of a name.
Airlie Close
Constantia, C.P.
Written for music
Life is written for music, and should be sung.
It is our loss if we refuse to sing
Our given parts, if we neglect to bring
Our life in tune with the moon and the sun and the stars;
If our notes stick in our throats
And we are dumb for bars and bars and bars
Often our score is in a minor key.
Sometimes it is a dirge.
Sometimes as now, it seems to be
A discord. But the beat's the thing
That matters, and the will to sing -
The urge, the surge of the song that bears
The burdened heart along
Through passages of peace or strife
From overture to finale
In the comic, tragic, opera of life.
Dorothea Spears