A prolific poet, Dorothea wrote over a thousand poems. This is a selection chosen to give you an idea of her interests, skills, talents and philosophy in these categories. Many of her poems fall into more than one category.
Philosophy For Living.
Beliefs .
Love .
Music .
Nature .
Planning and Change
South African History and Politics.
War .
Living and Dying .
Universe .
PHILOSOPHY FOR LIVING
Many of the poems included under different headings could have been included in this one as so many of them conclude with observations of a philosophical nature.
LIGHT FOR LIVING
If I could only dip a pen in light . . .
If I could only fill a fountain-pen
With this abundant fire and light − Oh, then The light would overflow and write and write Until it flooded the encroaching night
That creeps across the fearful heart of men And set the sun to shining clear again, Revealing beauty and reviving sight.
This light is in us if we will to see,
The light that radiates the way, the goal,
The light and love and life to make us whole. This love is in us if we will to free
The Self from self, unshuttering the soul
This Light is in us if we will to Be.
ON LIVING ALONE
Living alone has its compensations -
You can create your world in your image of God No harsh words spoken
No beautiful memories broken
By present hands
That cannot understand
The meaning of a token . . .
You can believe that men are kind
And be blind to things
You do not will to see
With none to clip your wings.
You can keep your dreams shining
With none to take them and break them.
Your lion and your lamb can lie together Independent of outer weather.
Yes, living alone has its compensations
And creations and may not be
As lonely as incompatibility.
DO NOT BELIEVE MEN
Do not believe men when they tell you Age is kind.
Do not think the rosy apple
Doesn’t mind a wrinkled skinOr that the blown rose
Is blind to the blemished petals,
Or autumned trees unconscious
Of change within,
Of falling sap that weakens
The will of leaf and limb
To persevere, of waning power
To bring to birth or bind,
Sensing the unforgivingness
Of the irretrievable hour . . .
Do not believe men when they tell you Age is kind.
THE RATIONALIST
To rationalise
I was taught in my youth
Is the process by which a man Persuades himself
Of the logic and truth
Of what he desires to do
So he can.
THESE PRECIOUS HOURS OF PEACE
These beautiful hours
Untouched by terror and unstained by hate Where buds still blossom into flowers
Under friendly skies that do not harbour death! Do you not know how precious these hours are Beloved? Do not mar
Their brief perfection by your frosty breath. Tomorrow some unanswerable Fate
May force this planetary gate
And at a blast release
Upon our world marauding hordes that wait To slaughter peace.
Tomorrow may silence the singing of our birds And rape the budding flowers
Beloved, let us not shatter these fragile hours With ugly words.
CONSERVATION TO PROGRESS
Our basic difference is here –
That I can pause and say to time “Stand still
The while I savour this . . . and this . . .
And this.” And time stands still.
But you must always push and prod
And shout ‘Get on . . . get on . . . get on!”
I know the work of the world would never get done By people like me. But people like you
Will never really get to know the sun
That fathered this world without your aid
And made it beautiful.
Is there not a place, my friend,
For both of us in this vast space
With all the sky above it –
You to work the world
And I to love it?
UNFLEDGED
There is no song but shall outlive the singer. There is no wrong but shall be shrived at last However long the unrelenting finger
Of shadow pointing darkly to the past. There is no gift but shall reward the giver. No love but shall return a thousandfold;No rivulet but flows − into the river
And hears at last the ocean’s secret told. There is no soul but can possess the future, No farthest goal beyond the nearest reach: No parting of the everlasting suture Uniting God and mankind each to each. Should man be satisfied with earthly things, Who is created with potential wings?
HUMANKIND CANNOT BEAR TOO MUCH REALITY
There are moments when the beauty of the Word Is too powerful, too poignant to be borne.
So pregnant with potential promise stirred
To quickened meaning that the being’s tornWith joyful pain endeavouring to hear
So great a weight of wonder and desire, When all the elements of earth and air And water blend in syllables of fire. Creation at such moments bares her breast To all the children of her womb who dare To face the unveiled and the unexpressed, Imbibe the Love forever flowing there. The moment passes and the glory wanes The taste of immortality remains.
NO ESCAPE FROM HUMANITY
It’s no use. It’s no use at all.
I thought to ride the winged steed of the storm,
To take at a single leap the mountain wall
And jump the ocean, forgetting the common form. I thought to ride for the space of a furious night Across the windswept leagues of the rugged sky, Drunk with the glorious ecstasy of flight,
And watch the whirling planet hurtle by
But now I know there’s no escape from the pain Of the common Body I share with my fellow men And while one suffers I seek to fly in vain
And am drawn to earth again and again and again. It’s no use. It’s no use at all:
There’s no escape from the common Body’s call.
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.
MAN’S REACH SHOULD EXCEED HIS GRASP
It doesn’t really matter at all, how deep
The intervening valleys, or how high
And inaccessible the peak, or steep
And bleak the crumbling crag we clamber by. It doesn’t matter that we must retraceOur footsteps, having taken a wrong turning. To slip, to fall at times, is no disgrace
If every error can become a learning.
It doesn’t matter, if we never loseThe vision, in the valley, of the peak
We seek to conquer, nor discard the shoes We use for climbing though the flesh be weak Only this can make life’s venture vain -
To have no beckoning summit to attain.
MOVEMENTS
There are movements of Kultur and Movements of Race; And political movements all over the place –
With Nazis and Fascists and Purified Nats
And Bolshies: and Movements for not wearing hats; There are all kinds of Movements (not mentioning shirts) For shortening hours or lengthening skirts,For abolishing that, and encouraging this,
For being hygienic and banning the kiss:
There are movements for fostering life in the Nude
And Movements for urging us back to the prude:
There are movements for starving or feeding the brute, For slimming, for “fitting”, for “eating more fruit”;
There are movements Religious and Movements mundane, Economic and social, both coloured and plain;
There are Movements Surrealist and Academic
In music, art, literature – highly polemic:
There are so many Movements, and most problematic – What I want’s a Movement for just being static!
BELIEFS
Dorothea was the daughter of the Methodist Bishop of Southern Africa and his extremely pious wife She was brought up with strong Christian beliefs and a detailed knowledge of the Bible. Her poems demonstrate her love of God and recognition that God is found within us.
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.
THOUGHT FOR MEDITATION
Three words there are that spring from one root. When man has solved the secret of their flowering Men shall taste the sweetness of their fruit.
A trinity of words, a cryptic key for man and men and planet peace empowering.Heal and whole and holy . . . one in three.
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.
THEY SAY
They say that Beings from the Outer Space Are beaming rays of light upon the earth To hasten evolution of the race
Preparing for another, greater birth.They say that man is standing on the verge
Of such a cataclysm as will shake
The world he knows, from which it will emerge As from a chrysalis and new forms take.
They say the work of demolition done
The period of transition safely passed
And unimaginable beauty won
Creation consummates a Man at last.
They say immortal man shall cleave this clod An epoch nearer to the Mind of God.
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!
ONLY ONE BEAUTY
There is only one beauty.
Sometimes it sets the sky on fire
And the heart stands still before the glory. Or it may come upon us suddenly
In words of a poem or the page of a story; A mighty chord of music;
Or the single note
That drops at twilight
From a bird’s throat.
It is the same beauty, whatever the guise, The same ubiquitous beauty −
Only our ears and eyes
Are unaccustomed.
Only flow and then
A revelation shakes us to the core,
And for the moment we are more
Than mortal men.
But whether it be tangible or intangible Or the sky or the sod;
There is only one beauty −
The beauty that is manifested God.
THE MIRACLE OF THE VINES
Man marvels that the Holy One of God
Two thousand years ago at Cana’s feast, When manifested in the flesh He trod
The land that lies between the West and East, Once telescoped the seasons to a span:The seedtime and the harvest merged in one And choicest wine from water firkins ran Transmuted by the blessing of the Son.
Yet man, unwondering and unimpressed, Watches these barren stumps drink up the rain And swell to fragrant fruit, a surfeited guest At Nature’s feast, and calls for signs in vain. Each year man sees the water turned to wine And views unmoved the miracle of the vine.
COMMUNION
This morning surely Heaven met with earth To bear a day of beauty so profound
And God Himself presided at its birth:
The very peace of God is in the ground.
The vines are heavy and the trees have caught The scent of autumn. Circling mountains press Against serenity wherein no thoughtOf winter stints the golden sun’s caress.
The turtle doves with low incessant praise Accompany the silence that is deep
And satisfying as a prayer that lays
Old ghosts to rest and lulls old hurts to sleep. Today I know with great humility
That I am part of God, and He of me.
DESECRATION
We have desecrated His Temple with merchandising. Nothing remains sacred. Nothing remains.
Even the human ties and the Holy days
Are festivals of barter more than praise.Who cultivates the earth for the love of man
Or the love of God? Now no man tends his sheep
To clothe his fellows, but to line his pockets.
The standard that measures the value man maintains Is not what good one does, but how it pays,
And all the knowledge vouchsafed man to keep
Is turned to a single channel in the end,
By “righteous” nations and by “righteous” men −The urge to get, to keep, and to defend.The old indictment stands the ages through − Should He not scourge us from His Temple, too?
NATIVITY
Far had I wandered over land and sea Seeking and seeking for the Son of God, Longing to witness His nativity,
Searching the paths where long ago He trod And finding nothing there but historyAnd lovely tales to spin a hope upon:
Alas, the Presence and mystery
Had vanished, and the peace of God was gone. And as I meditated in deep grief
That He was not where erstwhile He had been There came a voice across my unbelief-
O Traveller, turn your eyes within, within! And lo, within my heart’s prepared shrine
The eyes of Christ were smiling into mine.
LOVE
After nine years of marriage and two sons Dorothea fell in love with Frank. They were married in 1932 after three difficult years and her divorce, a shocking event at the time. This marriage produced two more sons and lasted nearly 60 years.
THIS IS LOVE
This is Love – that for the love of you
I love all men the more, see all things new. This is Love – that for my dear love’s sake The pathway of humility I take:
For love of one, to all my love I give, Content to serve, to love, and so – to live; At one with man below and God above: For you in tune with all things – this is love.
YOU FORGET
You forget so easily,
and I remember with such pain ...
Across the half tones of my life
your love is splashed, a crimson stain.
(How can I love in lavender when I have loved in scarlet?) It should be soiled with much remembering.
It has been washed so often in my tears
it should be faded now, but it flames
in bold relief against the pastel years,
and all the lovely quiet shades
in which my days and weeks are done
look pale and colourless beside
the vivid patch your love has spun ...
(I cannot love in lavender when I have loved in scarlet!) And how can I forget
when with so deep a dye your love is set?But you – your life is wrought like this of brilliant colour and delight,
and in your days of gold and flame one crimson thread is lost to sight, and you forget. I know ... I know. Only with me it is not so.
EVER SINCE EDEN
“The woman that Thou gavest me –
’Twas she – she bade me eat
The fruit of that forbidden tree.”
Said Adam looking at the Lord reproachfully. And Eve stood, looking at her feet,Penitent and sweet,
And said “The serpent beguiled me,”
Very softly. And the serpent smiled, Knowing that it would always be the same While woman is woman and man is man... Somebody has to take the blame.
CRYING HEART
My heart has been crying all day long And all night through:
I have tried to comfort it with a song, But it wants you.I have pleaded, and coaxed, and soothed in vain For only you can still its pain.
My heart is crying, and will not rest,
Will not be still.I have cradled and rocked it in my breast As mothers will,
But it will not listen, however I try
For only you can still its cry.And you, who left it crying there, Go blithely on – you do not care.
THEY TWAIN SHALL BE ONE
Heart of my heart, we know not whence We came, nor why, nor where we go; Nor for what merit or offence
Our lives are ordered so.Only we know that from your birth And mine (whatever birth may be) As YOU and I we paced the earth Till YOU and I were merged in WE. In life’s unmeasured crucible
Where God’s mysterious work goes on; Before the white-hot flame of love,
We two were welded into one.
No more as separate entitiesWe journey fearful and dismayed; As one we meet the mysteries And face the future - unafraid.
VALENTINE – 1949 MODEL
Valentines went out of date With crinolines, they say;
And Cupid waxes pale of late Who erstwhile was so gay,
And wanders all disconsolate That he hath lost his sway.
The age of courtesy is by,
And wooing’s lost its art,
Since lovers have no time to sigh Of Cupid and his dart.But still I’ll sing my Lady’s eye
That hath transfixed my heart.
Then humour me, my dearest dear – Complete my life’s design:
Accept this hand, this heart sincere, That owns no breast but thine. Consent in language chaste and clear (Please not “Ok”, nor yet “No fear!”) To be my Valentine.
THE CLOAK
Because there’s so much hatred in the air;
Because there’s so much hate:
Because the strife is rife, Because the hour is late . . . You and I must wear with care
And keep in good repair
The invisible cloak of love that safeguards life.
A single tear
Gives entry to the fatal knife
Unsheathed and bare.
Beware, my soul . . . beware.
QUESTION FOR ANY MOTHER
How much do I love you, flesh of my flesh and bone Of my bone - enough to leave you free
To seek your ultimate good by ways unknown, Whatever be the cost to me?Enough to let you tread your path alone, Even to Calvary,
If that’s the way your road lies, or to see You sweating blood in some Gethsemane, Nor lift a hand to strike away the cup From which you choose to sup?That I would give my life for you, you know, Nor stop to count the reckoning up.
But do I love you enough to let you go?
MUSIC
Dorothea played the piano, Frank sang, Hilary was a cellist and Johnny played the violin. Social occasions at their home often centred on music. The Spears had a box at the City Hall for the weekly concerts by the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.
THE SINGER
“Why do you sing?” I said, “Why do you sing, Walking along the long road by yourself?”
“I sing for the joy of the thing,” he said,
“That is deeper and stronger than sorrow,And because the faces of men are sad Perhaps if I sing they will borrow
A lilt from the lay I leave in the air - On the way they may walk tomorrow.”
MOZART
Here was an instrument that could detect The hidden harmonies inherent in
This universe, this earth, this little sphere Of flesh and spirit we inhabit here,And cage them in a dozen little notes Upon his manuscripts, alive and clear To be interpreted
By other instruments and other hands In music ordinary man can hear . . . And hearing understands.
MUSEUM GARDEN STELLENBOSCH
Here, in a world of tension where the feet
Of time beat their accelerating rhyme
And rhythm in seconds, minutes, hours and days At such a pace as leaves no space for rests,
For silences between the sounds, that shape
The music of our contrapuntal ways
To harmony and beauty, phrase on phrase: Here, near the throbbing heart of this busy mart A pause is written, a silence, a brief retreat
From the presto accelerando of the street,
And discord is resolved in a paean of praise.
BEETHOVEN’S THIRD
How hopeless I am, vainly trying to capture With words the sudden, unexpected flight
Of spirit, borne unstriving to the height
Of bliss, vertiginous with breathless rapture, On some pure strain of austere music rising Into the sexlessness of sheer delight, Unhampered, as a wind-borne feather light, The inertia of the wondering flesh surprising. If Heaven be like this ascent of soulOn wings of Music, effortlessly flying Above white clouds, this hunger satisfying, This life intensified, this aureole -
If this be foretaste of the spirit’s goal,
This ecstasy, then I shall not fear dying!
CELLO
Who would think, to see a cello
Leaning nonchalantly against a chair,
The pathos and the passion and the glory Hidden there.
Silent, waiting to be wakened
Waiting the hand to touch the mellow strings And give the folded beauty wings?
Perhaps some people are cellos.
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 throatsAnd 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 beA 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.
LONELY FLUTE
Lonely, lonely, lonely is the flute
Against the silence of the listening night When all the voices of the day are mute, Patterning a magic in moon’s light.
I heard it so. So many years ago
I heard it so, haunting eastern skies
A world of time and space away. I know,
I know how plaintively the flute cries . . . Chrysanthemums, pagodas, and the gold And scarlet leaves of autumn, and the pain Of autumn when the year is growing old And beauty unfulfilled, and on the wane. Syrinx is in the flute, and the voice of Pan Half god, half goat, and longing to be man.
SONG OF LIVING
Bow to the beat of it, swing to the surge of it;
Tap with the feet of it. answer the urge of it . . . Life! It is life, brother, feel it and flow with it, Riotous, beautiful - go with it, glow with it! Hesitate not on the brink, on the verge of it;
Drink it and think it and marvel and merge with it.Life is a harmony; join in the song of it.!
Life is a unity, enter the throng with it.!
Life is a river, a forest - the scope of it
Staggers the heart and the head with the hope of it. Life is a fire and the water that cools it:Life is the earth and the air and Who rules it.
Grieve or be gay with it, stay with it, play with it, Brother. but gratefully go all the way with it.
He who partakes of it most will not boast of it: He that is one with it, he makes the most of it. Pain of it, joy of it, load of it, lift of it -Glory to God for the fabulous gift of it!
NATURE
A subject very close to Dorothea’s heart which led her to write many poems, all through her life, featuring Nature. As well as writing poems from her observations of her surroundings, she also created beautiful gardens full of colour.
A SUGAR BIRD IN A SILVER TREE
A sugar bird in a silvertree!
Ah, here is exquisite poetry
Writ by the Great High Poet’s hand
In language that all may understand:
Here is a paean of ecstasy -
A sugar-bird in a silvertree!
A flash of green and gold and flame -
Jewels caught in a silver frame -
Splendent jewels that shimmer and shine
Like the gems on a Shinto idol’s shrine,
Set in a fulgent filigree -
A sugar bird in a silvertree.
Soft the sheen on the silver leaves
Where lambent laughing sunlight weaves Dreams diaphanous as the dew
That ushered dawn in when the day was new; A dream, a poem con amore
A sugar bird in a silvertree!
Glinting, glimmering, gay as light
Colour incarnate poised for flight:
Here is a masterpiece. Here is a song
By a lover, immutable, measureless, strong - A lover that loves all the world, and me,
And a sugar bird in a silvertree!
THE MODEL
Slowly parting the purple curtains of the night, Day comes tremulous, shy and half ashamed
Of all her lovely nakedness, and clasping tight
Her pale grey draperies of clinging mist. Reluctantly she mounts the dais and falters framed Against the verdant hangings, virgin, white,The clinging scarf unloosed: then by the great Sun kissed She blushes roseate, and stands erect.
With softly quivering breast. All beautiful and bare
She poses for her lord at high noon’s tide ...Evening falls, and drooping wearily, unchecked
She draws her draperies round her and a tear Reveals the delicate pink of flesh. Then, dewy-eyed, She slips again into the curtained night.
ZEEKOE VLEI (A LEGEND)
The Angel paused; his Heavenly nostrils twitched: "Do I smell Peace?" he said, and floated down
To view at closer range a place enriched
With such an aura. And so near a Town!The pelicans looked at him askance: the coot Were curious (as usual) and the tern Continued ballet practice to the flute
Of Aeolus. The Angel could discernNo unharmonious vibration. So
he spread his radiant hands above the Vlei. Prepared perpetual blessing to bestow . . .
The Arums and the Rooikranz heard him say “Through all vicissitudes that fortune brings”— (Flamingos flapped . . . a Bul-bul fluffed his notes) This spot shall be a homing place for wings
(He hadn’t heard of cars and motor-boats.)
THE RARER AIR
Now we become aware how petrol fumes And smoke pollute the purity of the air. We even legislate to eliminate
The vitiating factors, to repairThe irreparable damage of an age
That sells its birth right, wastes its heritage. We become aware of the price we pay
To mechanise mankind, and strive to find Alleviation, that we may bequeath
The coming generations air to breathe.
But we are blind and deaf to the part played By the individual emanations of mind
And heart that permeate the atmosphere
With love and hope or hate and greed and fear.
THE DROUGHT-STRICKEN FARMER
He has known laughter, once,
this man with the face grey and grim.He was young in the days gone by, but now his eyes are dim
With searching the skies for rain:
the drought has parched the soul of him.His lands lie open-mouthed, agape for the rains That never come.
Like laths in the wind his cattle stand,dim-wondering and dumb.
Ghostlike he stalks his ruined lands... Apathetic...Numb.
He has had his season of cynical laughter.
He had his period of cursing after;
He clung with his teeth to the hopes of the past:
He fought the Fates with laughter and curse
And flung in their faces his empty purse –
But they broke his spirit at last.
He stalks the lands: the last lean sheep bleat pitifully,and cry.
Time was when the sight had pierced his heart, Now he passes by
With never a word for the helpless beasts.He is used to watching them die. What is he thinking behind that mask,
this man who is young in years
And old in suffering; tight-lipped, hard; Untroubled by hopes or fears?
That granite face – will it smile again?Or those eyes be moved to tears? 84
NOT A FASHIONABLE POET
It is not up-to-date today, to write
Of beauty, or to dip a spleenless pen
In unadulterated woodland glen
Or flower-starred meadow lush with Spring’s delight. It is more fashionable to indite
On ode (unrhymed) to pigs in dungy den,
Likening them unto one’s fellow men;
Subverting beauty’s image, blackening white.
Yet seasons with their pageantry stream by,
And clouds of pearl still dapple heaven’s blue –
Let it be mine to let the whole world know it!
Why sing of dung when glory’s in the sky,
Or ugliness when beauty is as true?
Thank God, I am not a fashionable poet!
THE KEERBOOM TREE
(Prelude to The Voortrekkers)
There is a tree, the Keerboom Tree, With feathery foliage ever green
And blossoms like the wild sweet pea Or flowering bean.Elusive is the scent and sweet As lilac in the storied Spring
Of England, and as passing fleet When wings singTo spread its carpet of pale mauve About its feet, with silent grace Surrendering its treasure trove
of purple lace.A lover of the sun, it grows
In open spaces, free as air:
It has no love for gardens close Or gardener’s care.From out the arid soil it shoots
Defiant, hardy, unafraid,
Cleaving the hard earth with strong roots, Creating shade
Wherein more timid seedlings gain
The courage needed for life’s call
And burst the bonds where they have lain.Then, growing tall
Beneath the Keerboom’s sheltering boughs, They spread themselves and swelled with pride Look down upon the tree that bows
So shy beside
Their stateliness. The Keerboom tree,
That loves not shade, its duty done,
Fares farther, independently
To seek the sun.The Knysna forests, so men say,
Were nurtured thus in days long gone: These pioneers led the way
And then moved on.Moved on, forgotten, to fresh fields To seek the sun, to break new ground; New forests in frail youth to shield, New frontiers found.
The Keerboom tree, that loves the sun And knows not stays nor fear
And dies, a new life having won – The Pioneer.
JOY IN AUTUMN
What way was there of knowing, when I woke And saw the morning shrouded in its cloak
Of gray, that joy was overflowing? Oak
And pine and poplar wept when day broke.
The children of the day, its minutes, hours
And seconds passed unsmiling through the bowers Of dahlia and chrysanthemum, the flowers Beloved of Autumn, when the sun cowersAnd mountains hide their faces in a veil
Of mist. And melancholy winds wail
A warning to adorning blossoms frail
Defiant, fearless though the skies pale.
On such a day, what way was there of knowing The fount of joy would fill to overflowing?
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.
PLANNING AND CHANGE
Dorothea appreciated living in the Constantia valley and was very aware of future development. Fortunately today her former home is preserved as a haven of naturalness.
NOW I LISTEN
Now I listen who have listened long
Now all my being is become an ear
To hear the dying cadence of your song
Before your magic makers disappear.
So soon suburbia will put to flight
The old unpinioned magic of your spell
And sign your death knell
Hungry hands will write the signatures that break and buy and sell.
Eager to turn your beauty into gain
Eager to share the magic they destroy
Dismembering your being in the vain belief
You own eternal joy.
That beauty such as yours can be divided
In tiny pieces and remain a whole
And that grand symphony in which we prided Dispersed in single notes retain the soul.
Now I listen who has listened long
Now all my being is become an ear
To miss no moment of your song
My valley beautiful, sing loud, sing clear.
CONSTANTIA
Watching the rape of the valley, I am glad
I had the joy of knowing her
When all her vines were growing.
You, who come to-morrow, will not guess How fair she was, how peaceful, how serene Before the city’s passionate caressBegat the suburb that will dispossess The beauty that has been.
BETTER TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST
Do not mourn, Old Timer, you and I
Have had Constantia at its burnished best. Everything that ever lived must die;
The search for beauty is a ceaseless quest. The steel destroyers have not reached me yet. In my Constantia, still, is precious peace
That I am loth to lose. Lest I forget
I live it deeply, daily, till it cease.
Tomorrow’s newcomers will never know Constantia as we knew it, never see
The open view, the vineyards all a-glow,
The loveliness that lived for you and me. Surely we have cause for grateful praise
That we have shared the valley’s dearest days.
SEPTEMBER IN CONSTANTIA
This beauty
This inimitable and inevitable now and here!
There are so many windows in this house. and yet
In every window beauty, now and far and near −
Dear God, don't ever let my heart forget
(Should I grow sad or old)
The scenes in which these swift uncertain days are set.
But let my memory hold
Forever hillsides rich with purple and with gold −
And at the bottom of the hill
The Jersey cows against the meadow's green,
That browse beneath the willows delicately venturing
With verdure into Spring
Beside the stream that's marged with lilies' snowy gleam, And young oak's sheen . . .
And groups of ghostly Gothic poplars, wintered still;
Tall hakea hedges. scarlet tipped,
The lovely eucalyptus with the white bones showing through, The pines against the mountain, darkly blue.
And sweetpeas coral lipped . . .
And hosts of dappled clouds serene and high
Against a mackerel sky
Dear God, Your cup of beauty must be filled this year
That it has spilled so liberally here!
PROGRESS
How much does it cost to make this bit of road So that the tense hag-ridden motorist
Forever driven by old Saturn’s goad
Need never see the beauties that exist?In pounds and pence (or rands) I wouldn’t know, But many a lovely thing has had to fall;
The flaming aloe hedge has had to go,
And glossy flowering lengths of living wall.The stately old stone pines that used to spread Above prodigious boles their gracious shade, My ancient friends, are now forever dead Because another speedway must be made. Alas for men who have the sort of mind
That likes an unimportant road to wind!
THE OLD TOWN HOUSE
It has the still serenity of one
Who’s not surrendered his integrity
To that dictator, Time; now bowed the knee
To this new god that desecrates the Sun
And bids men neither stand nor walk but run; To this Baal men call Efficiency,
And sacrifice the truth that makes them free, The silence in themselves where peace is won. Time’s underlings, the Hours, have called in vain Their urgent tunes: these walls cannot forget More leisured measures, and these halls retain The tempo of that stately minuet.
Within this courtyard ghosts of peace remain And Time has signed a truce, unbroken yet.
SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY AND POLITICS
Dorothea was very aware of politics and the history of South Africa. She was a member of the Black Sash sisterhood and political meetings were held in the Spears home.
VOORTREKKER MOTHER’S FAREWELL
All is still beneath the distant dome
Of heaven, save the circling watch-fires burning And the uneasy sound of the cattle turning...
It is the last night in the gabled home.
At dawn the trek begins and all is ready.
Strong men, with labour wearied, soundly sleep; Only the Hottentots their vigil keep.
The breathing of night is hushed and steady.
All sleep – save one. A shadow through the night She moves, with bated breath and silent tread, To that enclosure where the wall gleams white: In memory she fondles each loved head
That she has borne and lost...
Tread not so light,
Mother, your farewells cannot wake the dead.
THE SEER
(C.J.R.)
He spoke in terms of Empire, it is true.
He thought in terms of empire, but his aim Was not an island’s glory or her fame,
Nor yet the wealth or power that might accrue. He shaped the means to fit the end in view.
He was a piece in the eternal game
Of evolution; Out of time he came
And empire was the biggest thing he knew.He glimpsed the blue-print of the Great Design Of synthesis. Perhaps too soon or late
He set himself to force the hand of Fate.
It is not strange that those who glimpse no line, Whose highest thought aspires to me and mine, Remember him with unforgiving hate.(C.J.R. refers to Cecil John Rhodes)
UNACCEPTABLE PROPHET
(J.C.S.)
There was always distance in his eyes
From walking much upon the heights alone, And sweeping seas and mountain tops and skies And far horizons of a vast unknown.
His little people could not understand
The devastating vastness of his vision.
He saw a world. They only saw their land. They spurned his wider wisdom with derision. Upon his Sinaitic peak he saw
A new horizon and a greater goal,
The process of a Universal Law
Of healing, making holy, making whole.
But in our valley with our viewless verve,
We built a little golden calf to serve.(J.C.S. refers to Jan Christian Smuts)
PRAYER FOR SOUTH AFRICA
God this is Thy country, this beautiful land.
If, in my arrogance I’ve called it mine
And sought to fashion it to my design,
This rich, rough-hewn creation O Hand, unmindful what Thy Sovereign Will had planned. If I’ve usurped decisions that were Thine Forgetting Thy authority divine,Forgive me that I did not understand.
If I be brown or yellow, black or white, Who dare to call this Africa my own
And claim it for my dominance alone Forgive me my presumption, Lord of Light. I wait in silence . . . let Thy Plan be known And all Thy children in that Plan unite.
THE DREAM
Knock . . . Knock . . . Knock . . . Not daylight yet – Who's there? You're dreaming. Go to sleep again. The knocking at the door is not more loud
Than knocks the heart against its cage of bone, And Innocence holding the hand is poor comfort. "Open" . . . The police . . . to violateThe sanctity of another home - your turn! Strange. You wouldn't open a letter sent
To one of your own, yet these insensitive hands Will rape most intimate diaries, profane
Most private papers and previous manuscripts That will not ever seem the same again.A narrow cell, and silence. Neither book
Nor pen nor friendly voice. A naked light
As cruel as the darkness. Day and night
The sudden questioning; the slanted news: Uncertainty assuming shapes grotesque
And terrifying: sense of security severed: Something bent that you will never straighten: Something broken you will never mend.Ninety days. How long is ninety days? Time for a season's passing: time to end A way of living . . . to betray a friend . . . Or lose a reason. To-day it is a dream. Tomorrow it may be true. It may be you.
HE WAS A MAN WHO SPOKE MY LANGUAGE
He was a man who spoke my language. Words kindled between us and took fire And lit a light of understanding
That brought the syllables to lifeAnd gave the letters meaning, as we spoke them. We sat there under the trees, drinking tea Discussing many things – unselfconsciously – Which was as it should be.
And there was nothing to signify but sight That he was dark and I was light.
His education was higher than ours
His thoughts as deep, his manners as fair Yet he could never occupy a chairBeside me in a public place, a concert, or a play
Nor share a meal, though any rogue with white skin Would be allowed in.
These are the people our masters are training to be Our servants, to take his place.
POINT OF NO RETURN
We pass the point of no return today. Those who remain, if any,
Will look back and say
“This was the point of no return”, here, At the final fork of the way:We called the army out to burn our bridges And barricade forever
The road that led to integration.
And it was hereWe finally discredited the men Who taught non-violence
Two thousand years ago and now And centuries before.(I do not think
The mob will listen to them anymore.)
We chose the road to forceful domination... The final decision was here.
No doubt we’ll dominate today.
Tomorrow...?
Will history look back and say
We saved, or doomed, our Western civilisation?
COLOUR
There are thoughts which lie too deep for words, And griefs too hard to be dissolved by tears
Too bitter to be coated, like a pill,
With sugar for the swallowing, and fearsToo potent to be hidden by the will.
So we are silent. So we do not weep.
So we bury thought. But the heart knows And is appalled, watching the doors close.
DISTRICT SIX
To-day will become to-morrow. No use, now, to pray
For time to stay the ultimatum; No use, now, to sayIt cannot happen . . .
We can no longer borrow hope
To solace this unbearable sorrow. This earth where we were born
And lived and died rejects us now And we must bow to this rejection, Learn somewhere, somehow
To live some other way.
For us tomorrow has become to-day.
REASON FOR TREASON?
Here is a scholar and a gentleman.
He can deal with problems that involve
The Higher Mathematics, He can think
With clarity and logic, and resolve
The physical to its component parts,
Or write a poem, preach a sermon, paint
A masterpiece or win a case at law
But if he be a sinner or a saint
We dare not sup with him, the erudite,
Because his skin is black and ours is white.
And here’s a puzzled woman, straight from the kraal, Unlettered and unlearned. We place our young Within her “savage” arms without a qualm
And that first vital five-year span is sung
To primitive lullabies. Her hands prepare
The food we eat. She passes in and out
Our houses and our lives and has a share
in our most intimate homes. Without a doubt
This is the apotheosis of reason.
To doubt it (in South Africa) were treason.
THE FREEDOM MARCH
(Monday, May 20 1957)
. . . . . . We march . . . . . . . . . We march . . .
We march
Across the pagesOf time: and through the ages
Tyrants have trembled
To hear the replication of our tread.
The beat of the feet
Of the living and the dead
Answering the call.
Not alone we march: not unknown
Into the future out of the past.
Neither the first or the last
But part of a never ending line
Stretching across the years.
Determined that the light of liberty shall shine for ever and for all.
Undeterred by threats or jeers
We march
. . . We march . . .
. . . . . . We march . . . . . .
NEW FASHION
Our beautiful, beloved Cape
Is being cut to a different shape:
We must wear it so, or go
In search of another that will not smother The innate love we have for the mother Of many children, who bade them grow Together, and for the love of the land
To serve, to share, and to understand? The coat of many colours is rent –
Can we who have worn it, be content With the new untraditional way
Design decrees we must follow today?
THE RAISING OF THE FLAG
Union Day, 1928
To-day we gather, in the sight of God,
To hoist a flag, the symbol of a nation.
Come, let us bow our heads: brave men have trod The path that leads us to this dedication.O, we have crossed our swords in flaming hate – May God forgive us – but that is the past And we have seen our childishness at last.
We come to-day our peace to celebrate.God grant us grace that we may well forget The bitterness, injustice, all that stings
And stains, our souls with harrowing regret, And fix our thoughts upon the better things.God raise our minds this day, as now we raise This emblem of our unity and love.
God lift our souls and keep our hearts above The paltry strifes, the pettiness that slays,This is our flag: the colours matter not –
’Tis ours to make an emblem of the brave, And ours to shield from shame's defacing blot, That patriot hearts may thrill to see it wave.Within that narrow strip of virgin white
Are memories enshrined – God hallow these – And purge the malice from our memories,
And make our hearts as fair in Heaven's sight .“I pledge allegiance to my flag” – stand straight! – “And to the nation for which it shall stand:
I pledge myself to help God make it great” –
O, Brothers, let us say it hand in hand!
WAR
Leaving America for South Africa in 1918 Dorothea lived through the First World War as well as the Second World War. Her poetry expresses her horror of war.
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!
THE DOGS ARE LOOSE
...................Once more
Man has unleased the hungry hounds of War.Across the Continent we hear them bay –
The fierce dogs, ravening for human prey; Making an end of innocent delight.
No more shall we sleep dreamlessly at night... The ravenous dogs of War are on the trail And there no earth for us that will not fail.For these are not tame hounds, that come to heal At whistle or command. With jaws of steel
And breeding hate, they occupy the land.
They gorge on beauty, glut themselves with youth, And drag in the mud the tattered garb of Truth: They hunt down Innocence, and snarling, tear God’s image from men’s living breasts; lay bare The reeking flesh of Lust that shame would hide: And men do murder in the name of Pride.They have not found our scent yet, but who knows Which way the treacherous wind tomorrow blows? Then let us not in fancied safety gloat –
Tomorrow we may feel them at out throat.For man may loosen, but man cannot thrall The hungry hounds of War...God help us all!
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 keepA 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.
THE VISITOR
I met a ‘stranger in etheric space’
Pacing through the planet where the race
Of men, immured in mortal bodies stays.
He gazed amazed, and turning his head said
(In astral language, of course) Pray tell me, friend, Why these peculiar, often beautiful bipeds spend Their little lives of little nights and daysin such peculiar ways.
Everybody always seems to be either doingwhat you call killing, spilling What you call blood
(which seems to be your symbol of life),
Racking your planetary body with futile strife.
Or else seeking something nobody ever seems to find. What are you looking for?”
“The alchemists of old
Thought it was gold,” I said, “that they could hold, Or the elixir of life, or the fountain of youth
Or Grail or goal, Samadhi, or ultimate truth,
A Word, a living Light . . . I only know
It’s something that Adam lost a million years ago. Haven’t you heard the fable?
And ever since then Cain has been killing Abel”
THE GLORY OF WAR
War. You talk of glory of war – My God!
Were you there? Were you there in muck and mud
That clung like dying hands in the putrid sod;
Wet to the skin with slime and your brother’s blood,
Till your very soul was smeared with the crimson stain
And your forehead throbbed with the burning brand of Cain? The glory of War... the hounds of Hell let loose,
Baying within your brain like the dying cries
Of the men you’ve slain. Peace cannot call a truce
To the din in your ears, or the visions that haunt your eyes. The world cries “Peace!” and the hand of slaughter is stayed, But the deadly ghosts of War will not be laid.I
A momentary lull, a hush, a thrill –
Clamouring hearts held fast by an iron will –
A word – and we’re over the top and into the fray! Fighting, killing, mad with murder lust –
Filled with a thirst for blood we fire and thrust –
Back to the savage : it is the only way.
This is the glory of War. And behind the line
A woman waits for the man you’ve killed;
The sign of the cross she makes,
And prays to the Virgin Mother
To bring him back, and tonight his children cry
For the man who lies at your feet with glazing eye.
– Shall we ever escape the curses that follow us, Brother?We fought for the right, our Country, and our King And God was on our side. (They said the same.) We did our duty...and War is a glorious thing!
We won the widows’ curse, and undying fame!II
Hark, what sound is that above this Hell,
The din of shot and the screech of bursting shell?
Is it an angel singing through the strife?
Akin – a violin in a master hand,
Surely, the bullets themselves must understand –
A genius for a shell – and spare that life.
... his bow is broken forever... his blood is red:
Not man alone, but Music there lies dead.
This artist with his hand forever stilled;
That dreaming poet wandering in the cloud
Of Fantasy (‘Twill be his only shroud)
These are not men, but Beauty we have killed!
The blood of murdered Beauty cries from the ground: Peace cannot cleanse our souls of this dire stain: Something is lost that will never more be found. Something is dead that will not waken again....
This is War, that stills the poet’s tongue,
That rifles the fairest gems of Beauty’s shrine.
This is War, that leaves God’s harps unstrung
And kills within us something rare and fine;
– A poisoned dart from the hand of Satan hurled
To mar the image of God in the heart of the world. The glory of War... Its iron has entered your soul
But we face the truth at last with eyes that see.
We who fought shall never again be whole,
But the knowledge of truth shall set our children free. In the name of God and Beauty and Truth – Go tell There is no glory in War – but only Hell!
LIVING AND DYING
Dorothea wrote many poems expressing her joy of living and thanks to God. She also wrote of death, often following the death of a dear friend. Her outstanding poem, “When One Goes Forth”, is included in this biography on page 27.
TIGHTROPE WALKERS
Come, beloved, let us stretch the cord
That lies across the vision of the word...
Tauter... tauter... tauter. Let us dare
To walk the tightrope of the quivering air,
Not looking down, but straight ahead to see
The distant goal of immortality
For you and me, and being one for me
And you. So gossamer the thread we tread
Suspended over such stupendous heights
Who knows what heights and depth? Or what the lights That beckon us below, above, ahead!
And who shall say which light more dangerous is
To those who seek to bridge the earth’s abyss? Attention falter not nor flesh distract –
We yet may cheat oblivion in this act.
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.
INDELIBLE
Even in our lifetime we outlive
Men’s need of us, and few of us survive
The searching test of death: the breath
Of flame will not proclaim our name.
So quickly men forget and yet
We have an earthly immortality . . .
Every one of us shall be
Immortalized by what we give,
Our contribution to humanity
In kind, for none can pass from birth to death And leave no mark behind.
A PARTING
What does the heart say
Standing at the parting of the ways looking back across the years
And turning the pages of nights and days And places and faces
Dappled with sun and rain?
The heart says only “Thank you . . . Thank you for the years
Of beauty and joy and pain –”
But not with tears,
Oh, not with tears!
DEATH HAS A KIND FACE
I have no quarrel with Death
For I have looked upon his face
And found it friendly.
I have fear of the time beyond time
It is the time in time
Would make me afraid.
The captive time
For which I hold the key,
Whose responsibility is laid
Upon me, the threescore years
And ten (or less or more)
To be accounted for
The minutes and hours and days of earth. I have been a lover of life . . .
But Death has a kinder face than Birth.
TOTSIENS
(Goodbye)
We always parted on a note of laughter,
You and I, nor ever said goodbye
With Sorrow for the empty morrow after. Knowing the mime of time and the face of space For the ephemeral images they areWe held division in derision. Why
Should I now cry, that you have hitched a star
And cut a chord that prisoned you in place
And journeyed suddenly, swiftly, may be far?
But yesterday we said, nodding the head
“We live on Eternity now” and laughed to feel
The truth that we had taught and thought and read Was here and now and definite and real.. . .
The word of your death is music in the air
That’s bare of your flesh, but full of the song of you. I will not weep, my friend. See, I sing, too.
And touch the hem of the robe of light you wear.
UNIVERSE
The poem “The Great Adventure” was included in the wedding of Dorothea’s granddaughter Portia to Henry Charles in 1995.
GREAT ADVENTURE
You say that all the continents are conquered? You say that all the exploration’s done
And the great adventuring is over?
The Great Adventure’s only just begun! Beyond the manifest, beyond the symbol,Are undiscovered worlds for those who fare
To face the unknown with a faith unfailing,
The pioneers who vision, and who dare
To fling a bridge across the unknown oceans
Of mind and spirit till they reach a shore Whereon the minds of men have never trodden − To conquer it, and then go on once more;Till, universes circumnavigated,
Unsealed the secrets of the earth and sky, They close the circle where the circle started And home within the everlasting I.
MAN THE RIDER
Pedestrian man walked in a garden once
And was satisfied.
Then
He tamed himself a horse and learned to ride. Since whenHe has never been content again Unless he was taming something, Harnessing some life or dumb thing, Wheel or wing.
He mastered the wild white horses of the sea And rode on the back of the wind,
And if he took a toss
And rode headlong into eternity– No matter – the man behind
Learned from his loss,
He harnessed wood and iron and steel
And bridled the fuel from earth's depths
To speed his chariot wheel.
Today he spans the earth on wings or sound. Tomorrow he will race
On telepathic steeds around
The little world's diminished ground;
And perhaps the day after
He will shatter his cramping carapace
In a final burst of triumphant laughter
And ride across the bounds of time and space.
THE BASIC HERESY
I have held the planet in the hollow of my hand;
Twixt thumb and index finger held the ocean and the land, One integrated unit but men will not understand.We sketch our sovereign borders with a flourish, underline In red our demarcations with a bold NO TRESPASS sign Defy a violation of each artificial mine.
Twixt nation and twixt nation, man and man, and race and race,
Our artificial barriers desecrate God’s holy place
And foil the purpose of His Love, the flowing of His GraceWe believe in boundaries: that’s our schism: that’s the sin Against the Holy Ghost that will not let the Spirit win Domination on this wayward earth to bring His Kingdom in.
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!
TRANSITION?
There was a time, before it was the fashion To discount rhyme and virtue, and depart From old accepted disciplines of passion And old established disciplines of Art.
A time when wrong was wrong and white was white And men could understand a play, a song,
A picture: black was black and right was right
God was God, and love was high and long.Then humankind was made of heart and soul As well as mind and body. Then his reach, When life had an acknowledged end, a goal, Exceeded his grasp and gave a guide to each.
Perhaps it’s time to turn another page And learn new lessons for a new age?
INDIAN SUMMER SUNDAY
I knew when I awoke that this would be
No Common day: the silence held a note Begotten only in Eternity
And sounded deathless from Creation’s throat. It was as if the common cloak of formWore threadbare and revealed the Light behind
Of which all things are made, the changeless norm Inviolate within the Eternal Mind.
A new and unfamiliar beauty held
The old familiar earth within its hand,
And for a day the timeless truth was spelled
In words that simple men could understand.
And those with ears to hear and eyes to see
Could stretch a hand and touch Infinity.
Against a Revival of Nationalism
I speak
Not as of any nation
Nor any hue or face,
Not as of any rank or station:
I speak as member of the human race.
We have learned the hard way,
Brother, you and I.
(Or have we learned?) We pay
Thrice over, now if we deny
The lessons that the centuries have taught,
Through family, through group, through clan,
Expanding ever, reaching out in thought.
As man’s horizons broaden so does Man
(Or does he?) through City and through State,
Through Nation, Empire, Commonwealth –
Twice of late
Has Mankind’s road to health
Been blasted by the backward turning gaze
Of those whose minds still lagged in outgrown days;
Who found no higher goal in this great sphere,
No larger allegiance than a Nation’s pride
For which they held no sacrifice too dear –
For this we died.
Are we incapable of learning then?
Must we too play Lot’s wife?
Disaster waits for who turns back again:
In progress only lies the way to life.
I fear not change – but let it be
To something greater, not to something less;
Some further step towards worldwide liberty –
The one road to success.
Cape Town