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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=530228" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Bechuana Boy</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I sat at noontide in my tent, <br>And looked across the Desert dun, <br>Beneath the cloudless firmament <br>Far gleaming in the sun, <br>When from the bosom of the waste <br>A swarthy Stripling came in haste, <br>With foot unshod and naked limb; <br>And a tame springbok followed him. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With open aspect, frank yet bland, <br>And with a modest mien he stood, <br>Caressing with a gentle hand <br>That beast of gentle brood; <br>Then, meekly gazing in my face, <br>Said in the language of his race, <br>With smiling look yet pensive tone,<br>&quot;Stranger -- I'm in the world alone!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Poor boy!&quot; I said, &quot;thy native home <br>Lies far beyond the Stormberg blue: <br>Why hast thou left it, boy! to roam <br>This desolate Karroo?&quot; <br>His face grew sadder while I spoke; <br>The smile forsook it; and he broke <br>Short silence with a sob-like sigh, <br>And told his hapless history.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;I have no home!&quot; replied the boy: <br>&quot;The Bergenaars -- by night they came,<br>And raised their wolfish howl of joy,<br>While o'er our huts the flame <br>Resistless rushed; and aye their yell <br>Pealed louder as our warriors fell <br>In helpless heaps beneath their shot: <br>-- One living man they left us not! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;The slaughter o'er, they gave the slain <br>To feast the foul-beaked birds of prey; <br>And, with our herds, across the plain <br>They hurried us away -- <br>The widowed mothers and their brood. <br>Oft, in despair, for drink and food <br>We vainly cried: they heeded not, <br>But with sharp lash the captive smote. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Three days we tracked that dreary wild, <br>Where thirst and anguish pressed us sore; <br>And many a mother and her child <br>Lay down to rise no more. <br>Behind us, on the desert brown, <br>We saw the vultures swooping down: <br>And heard, as the grim night was falling, <br>The wolf to his gorged comrade calling. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;At length we heard a river sounding <br>'Midst that dry and dismal land, <br>And, like a troop of wild deer bounding, <br>We hurried to its strand --<br>Among the maddened cattle rushing; <br>The crowd behind still forward pushing, <br>Till in the flood our limbs were drenched, <br>And the fierce rage of thirst was quenched. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Hoarse-roaring, dark, the broad Gareep <br>In turbid streams was sweeping fast, <br>Huge sea-cows in its eddies deep <br>Loud snorting as we passed; <br>But that relentless robber clan<br>Right through those waters wild and wan <br>Drove on like sheep our wearied band: <br>-- Some never reached the farther strand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;All shivering from the foaming flood, <br>We stood upon the stranger's ground, <br>When, with proud looks and gestures rude, <br>The White Men gathered round: <br>And there, like cattle from the fold, <br>By Christians we were bought and sold, <br>'Midst laughter loud and looks of scorn --<br>And roughly from each other torn. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;My Mother's scream, so long and shrill, <br>My little Sister's wailing cry, <br>(In dreams I often hear them still!) <br>Rose wildly to the sky. <br>A tiger's heart came to me then, <br>And fiercely on those ruthless men <br>I sprang. -- Alas! dashed on the sand, <br>Bleeding, they bound me foot and hand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Away -- away on prancing steeds <br>The stout man-stealers blithely go, <br>Through long low valleys fringed with reeds, <br>O'er mountains capped with snow, <br>Each with his captive, far and fast; <br>Until yon rock-bound ridge we passed, <br>And distant stripes of cultured soil <br>Bespoke the land of tears and toil. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;And tears and toil have been my lot <br>Since I the White Man's thrall became, <br>And sorer griefs I wish forgot -- <br>Harsh blows, and scorn, and shame! <br>Oh, Englishman! thou ne'er canst know <br>The injured bondman's bitter woe, <br>When round his breast, like scorpions, cling <br>Black thoughts that madden while they sting!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Yet this hard fate I might have borne, <br>And taught in time my soul to bend, <br>Had my sad yearning heart forlorn <br>But found a single friend: <br>My race extinct or far removed, <br>The Boor's rough brood I could have loved; <br>But each to whom my bosom turned <br>Even like a hound the black boy spurned. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;While, friendless thus, my master's flocks <br>I tended on the upland waste, <br>It chanced this fawn leapt from the rocks, <br>By wolfish wild-dogs chased: <br>I rescued it, though wounded sore <br>And dabbled in its mother's gore;<br>And nursed it in a cavern wild, <br>Until it loved me like a child. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Gently I nursed it; for I thought <br>(Its hapless fate so like to mine) <br>By good Utíko it was brought <br>To bid me not repine, -- <br>Since in this world of wrong and ill <br>One creature lived that loved me still, <br>Although its dark and dazzling eye <br>Beamed not with human sympathy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Thus lived I, a lone orphan lad, <br>My task the proud Boor's flocks to tend; <br>And this poor fawn was all I had <br>To love, or call my friend; <br>When suddenly, with haughty look <br>And taunting words, that tyrant took <br>My playmate for his pampered boy, <br>Who envied me my only joy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;High swelled my heart! -- But when a star <br>Of midnight gleamed, I softly led <br>My bounding favourite forth, and far <br>Into the Desert fled. <br>And here, from human kind exiled, <br>Three moons on roots and berries wild <br>I've fared; and braved the beasts of prey, <br>To 'scape from spoilers worse than they. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;But yester morn a Bushman brought <br>The tidings that thy tents were near; <br>And now with hasty foot I've sought <br>Thy presence, void of fear; <br>Because they say, O English Chief, <br>Thou scornest not the Captive's grief: <br>Then let me serve thee, as thine own -- <br>For I am in the world alone!&quot; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such was Marossi's touching tale. <br>Our breasts they were not made of stone:<br>His words, his winning looks prevail --<br>We took him for `our own.' <br>And One, with woman's gentle art, <br>Unlocked the fountains of his heart; <br>And love gushed forth -- till he became <br>Her Child in every thing but name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Pringle">Thomas Pringle</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=530228" data-title="The Bechuana Boy de Thomas Pringle" data-description="I sat at noontide in my tent, 
And looked across the Desert dun, 
Beneath the cloudless firmament 
Far gleaming in the sun, 
When from the bosom of the waste 
A swarthy Stripling came in haste, 
With foot unshod and naked limb; 
And a tame springb..."></div>
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