Classic Poem

The Rhodesian East Wind

I

Injasi, sea-born, sweeps the heat away;
West, with the westering sun, low-voiced she flies
Waking cool airs to rouse the lazy day,
Wafting the grass-smoke from the laden skies.

Injasi of the ocean cools the plains,
And clears the valleys where the fevers lurk,
And brings new vigour as the mid-heat wanes,
Where, on the shaft-sunk slopes, the White Men work.

Injasi from the Eastward brings the breeze
That billows-out the long grass on the hills,
And sings unceasing through umsasa trees,
And blows the brown dust where the farmer tills.

II

— The dust that sinks to Westward from the plough.
The heat-waves shake, and break, and disappear;
On Odzi peak the high-winds roar and sough
Through riven cliffs the thunder-songs of air.

The whole veld wakes to face the afternoon;
The drowsy duiker rise and pass along
The cooling foot-hills; and the brown baboon
Shout on the crags; the birds renew their song;

The long grass rustles, and the dead leaves fall;
The browsing bushbuck sniff the scented breeze;
Far off; the dassies on the krantzes call,
And hail the East-Wind of the open seas.

III

Who knows the home of sea-born winds that pass
Waking with dawn and wandering with the sun —
Sweet-odoured winds that whisper in the grass
And fade in silence when the day is done?

Who knows the home of these, — or any thing?
From voiceless dark we come. The sun and rain
Are ours a space, and what the world may bring;
— Then back into the soundless dark again!

In August greenly the young grasses peep,
In June turn brown when they have ceased to grow;
Then, over range and plain, the veld-fires sweep,
And they are gone ... as we, in turn, shall go.

IV

The cattle are returning from the vleis,
The sun, gold-fingered, sinks into the West;
The kopjes yield the goats by well-worn ways
Back to their wired kraals to take their rest;

The last hoarse crows flap Westwards through the sky,
A hare lopes out to browse along the road,
The last pink tints on Vumba pale and die,
The deepening heaven (infinitely sowed

With myriad jewels) scarce one star reveals,
When, as the valleys into shadows melt,
Unseen, Injasi silent homeward steals,
And leaves dark night the wooing of the veld.