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Translated by C. T. Brooks
KING of deserts reigns the lion; will he through his realm go riding, | |
| Down to the lagoon he paces, in the tall sedge there lies hiding. | |
| Where gazelles and camelopards drink, he crouches by the shore; | |
| Ominous, above the monster, moans the quivering sycamore. | |
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| When, at dusk, the ruddy hearthfires in the Hottentot kraals are glowing, | 5 |
| And the motley, changeful signals on the Table Mountain growing | |
| Dim and distant,—when the Caffre sweeps along the lone karroo,— | |
| When in the bush the antelope slumbers, and beside the stream the gnu,— | |
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| Lo! majestically stalking, yonder comes the tall giraffe, | |
| Hot with thirst, the gloomy waters of the dull lagoon to quaff; | 10 |
| O’er the naked waste behold her, with parched tongue, all panting hasten,— | |
| Now she sucks the cool draught, kneeling, from the stagnant, slimy basin. | |
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| Hark! a rustling in the sedges! with a roar, the lion springs | |
| On her back now. What a race-horse! Say, in proudest stalls of kings, | |
| Saw one ever richer housings than the courser’s motley hide, | 15 |
| On whose back the tawny monarch of the beasts tonight will ride? | |
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| Fixed his teeth are in the muscles of the nape, with greedy strain; | |
| Round the giant courser’s withers waves the rider’s yellow mane. | |
| With a hollow cry of anguish, leaps and flies the tortured steed; | |
| See her, how with skin of leopard she combines the camel’s speed! | 20 |
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| See, with lightly beating footsteps, how she scours the moonlit plains! | |
| From their sockets start the eyeballs; from the torn and bleeding veins, | |
| Fast the thick, black drops come trickling, o’er the brown and dappled neck, | |
| And the flying beast’s heart-beatings audible the stillness make. | |
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| Like the cloud, that, guiding Israel through the land of Yemen, shone, | 25 |
| Like a spirit of the desert, like a phantom, pale and wan, | |
| O’er the desert’s sandy ocean, like a waterspout at sea, | |
| Whirls a yellow, cloudy column, tracking them where’er they flee. | |
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| On their track the vulture follows, flapping, croaking, through the air, | |
| And the terrible hyena, plunderer of tombs, is there; | 30 |
| Follows them the stealthy panther,—Cape-town’s folds have known him well; | |
| Them their monarch’s dreadful pathway, blood and sweat full plainly tell. | |
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| On his living throne, they, quaking, see their ruler sitting there, | |
| With sharp claw the painted cushion of his seat they see him tear. | |
| Restless the giraffe must bear him on, till strength and life-blood fail her; | 35 |
| Mastered by such daring rider, rearing, plunging, naught avail her. | |
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| To the desert’s verge she staggers,—sinks,—one groan—and all is o’er. | |
| Now the steed shall feast the rider, dead, and smeared with dust and gore. | |
| Far across, o’er Madagascar, faintly now the morning breaks;— | |
| Thus the king of beasts his journey nightly through his empire makes. | 40 |
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