Classic Poem

A few stones in the grass,
A few shards in the green,
And broken chips of glass,
And rusted iron seen
All cover'd by creeper and shrouded in sand,
Where the home of man has been.

Soon to the hiding waste,
Swift to the utter wild,
Sudden in shamed haste
Like a shy maid beguil'd,
The work of the years fades back, as fades to the sea
The work of a little child.

The thatch goes whence it came,
The bricks melt to the soil,
And, in the winter flame,
The woodwork flares like oil;
And the jealous Veld-Mother draws back to her breast
This babe of the years of toil.

Roof, foundation, and wall
Give to the beating rain;
Cornlands, garden, and kraal
Yield, where the fight is vain;
And man's effort, man's hope, and the mark of his hand
Goes back to the veld again.

Only the veld remains;
The weaving grasses span
Green, where the green contains
The ruin'd work of man;
Scarce a torrent-wash'd rut on the hillside to show
Where the year-worn roadways ran.