POETRY.
THE GARDEN COLONY.
(A REMINISCENCE OF NATAL.)
THERE is no winter in this land of flowers,
But only storm and sunshine : fiery heat Bursting in furious cataracts of rain.
The fabled orchards of Alcinous Were not more prodigal of every fruit; Here, in a single garden, I have seen Trees loaded with the citron and the lime : Amatangulu with its milky plum And star-white blossom like the jessamine, The mango, the banana's drooping cone Of purple blossom, the pawpaw and the pine.
And loquat scented like our English may, Lemon and naartche and the granadilla, The ehaddock with its green colossal sphere, And glimmering orange-groves, amid whose boughs, Where fruit and bridal flower dropt side by side, The firefly flashed and vanished like a spark.
And, day by day, in Durban streets I trod Where all the brilliant hues of Eastern life Clash with the West—the Zulu with his rickshaw, The Arab trader clad in flowing lawn, And Kaffir wives, trooping in companies, Carrying brown calabashes on their heads, Or infants slung in blankets on their backs, Stirred the red dust :—and when the evening train Crawled up the spiral track, one saw the Coolie— More like a meagre shadow than a man— Plodding the dreary flats of Durban Bay Beyond Congella ; and, running from their hilts, With many a bracelet on their elfish limbs, The little Coolie children clapped their hands To watch the train ; twittering like weaver-birds That hang their nests above the Umbilo River.
Alas! that these clear hills and happy valleys Lying like liquid lakes of azure bloom, Where nothing fiercer than the trekker's whip, Urging his long laborious span, awoke The stillness of the dewy dawn, should now Thunder and scatter a thousand startled echoes, While the sweet air is maddened with the shriek Of fiery scorpion, and the smoke of war.
We pray for peace; and peace will come again, The herald ot a happier day, to heal The wounds of fair Natal ; yet not in vain The brave have bled that man may honour man : And, to what end does Britain rule the wave, But that her Justice, like the salt o' the billow, Should cleanse and sweeten a corrupted world P
GASCOIGNE Mecirm.
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