Classic Poem

Neither the one nor the other, neither the White nor the Black,
By the side of the dusty wagon outspanned on the highveld track,
Alone by the dung-fed fire where the sad-voiced night-jars wheel,
Goliat Witbooi the half-caste partakes of his evening meal.

Not clear is the path of the Black man, not easy the road of the White,
But the trail of the man who is neither is wanting all glimmer of light,—
The man who is both, but is neither; the sport of sudden fire
Of a woman who saw not the meaning and a man who was dull'd by desire.

At odds with God in His heaven, at sixes and sevens with man,
The colour showing beneath the white, the white beneath the tan,
Despised and distrusted by White and by Black; wifeless, childless, and lone—
Father, how could you have done it! O Mother, you might have known . . . .

Not blind to the aching pity, but dumb for the hot excuse,
He would hide the shame of his being in a passion of wild abuse
From those whose stare is an insult, from those who will slam the door
On the shame that is his and yet is not, for the wrong of the Two Before.

Embitter'd, unletter'd, unloving; homeless, nameless, forlorn;
Doomed by a fact that he cannot mend—by the fact that he was born—
Drinking his beaker of coffee, and eating his dole of bread,
Well might he pray for the end to be near and wish that he were dead.


But no. For hope is still present, and hope is a father to all,
And the long road stretches to Northward—and he hears the long road call—
And the Veld is a kindly mother, the bullocks doze at the chain,
Umfaan will return by morning, and he will trek on again.

Yea, good is the road to the Northward, and good is the light of the sun,
And good is a pipe in the evening when the long day's trek is done—
When the bullocks browse in the valley and the moon comes over the kop,
And the voorlooper makes the cookies, and Witbooi drinks his dop;

And the fire lights up the wagon, and the smoke goes by with the breeze,
And he dreams of the good North hunting—old camps beneath the trees
In the timber'd low-veld country where the game is as thick as stock,
With never a White Man to scorn him and never a Black Man to mock.

Yea, good is the road to the Northward through the sun-warmed winter days
When the fine dust blows to leeward and the track leads round the vleis,
To sit on the fore-part locker and to drone to the warm spent wind
The chant of the New before one and the dirge of the Old, behind.

Song of the home that is moving past kopje and valley and plain—
Song of the very simple things: the sun and the wind and the rain
And the warm brown earth beneath one and the sky where the vultures soar—
With only the Bad behind one and only the Good before.

Neither the one nor the other, neither the White nor the Black,
By the side of the dusty wagon outspann'd on the highveld track,
Wrapp'd in a coloured blanket, and dreaming of his desire
Lies Goliat Witbooi, the half-caste, asleep before the fire.