The Captive of Camalu

The Captive of Camalu

O Camalu - green Camalu!

'Twas there I fed my father's flock,

Beside the mount where cedars threw

At dawn their shadows from the rock;

There tended I my father's flock

Along the grassy-margined rills,

Or chased the bounding bontebok

With hound and spear among the hills.

Green Camalu! methinks I view

The lilies in thy meadows growing;

I see thy waters bright and blue

Beneath the pale-leaved willows flowing:

I hear, along the valleys lowing,

The heifers wending to the fold.

And jocund herd-boys, loudly blowing

The horn, to mimic hunters bold.

Methinks I see the umkoba-tree

That shades the village chieftain's cot;

The evening smoke curls lovingly

Above that calm and pleasant spot.

My father? - Ha! - I had forgot -

The old man rests in slumber deep;

My mother? - Aye! she answer not -

Her heart is hushed in dreamless sleep.

My brothers too - green Camalu,

Repose they by thy quiet tide?

Aye! there they sleep - where white men slew

And left them - lying side by side.

No pity had those men of pride,

They fired the huts above the dying!

White bones bestrew that valley wide -

I wish that mine were with them lying.

I envy you by Camalu,

Ye wild hearts on the woody hills;

Though tigers there their prey pursue,

And vultures slake in blood their bills.

The heart may strive until Nature's ills,

To Nature's common doom resigned;

Death the frail body only kills -

But thralldom brutifies the mind.

Oh, wretched fate! - heart desolate,

A captive in the spoiler's hand,

To serve the tyrant whom I hate -

To crouch beneath his proud command.

Upon my flesh to bear his brand -

His blows, his better scorn to bide! -

Would God, I in my native land

Had with my slaughtered brothers died!

Ye mountains blue of Camalu.

Where once I fed my father's flock,

Though desolation dwells with you,

And Amakosa's heart is broke,

Yet, spite of chains, these limbs that mock,

My homeless heart to you doth fly, -

As flies the wild dove to the rock,

To hide its wounded breast - and die!

Yet ere my spirit wings its flight

Unto death's silent shadowy clime,

Utiko! Lord of life and light,

Who, high above the clouds of Time,

Calm sittest where yon hosts sublime

Of stars wheel round thy bright abode,

Oh, let my cry unto thee climb,

Of every race the Father-God.

I ask not judgments from thy hand -

Destroying hail or parching drought,

Or locust-swarms to waste the land,

Or pestilence by famine brought;

I say the prayer Jankanna**, taught,

Who wept for Amakosa's wrongs -

'Thy kingdom come - thy will be wrought -

For unto Thee all power belongs.

Thy kingdom come! Let light and grace

Throughout all lands in triumph go;

Till pride and strife to love give place,

And blood and tears forget to flow;

Till Europe mourn for Africa's woe,

And o'er the deep her arms extend

To lift her where she lieth low -

And prove indeed her Christian Friend!

*Camalu is a glen at the source of the Kat river. The "Captive of Camalu" is supposed to express the feelings of some of those Caffres and Ghontas converted by the Missionary Williams, who after the devastating wars of 1818, 1819, were forced to become bondmen among the Boors, or imprisoned in Robber Island. See Philip's Researchs, pp. 190-192.

**The Caffre name for Dr. Vanderkemp.

Unattributed

3:24, p. 4

1839.08.24

From Pringle's Poetical Works; The "Captive of Camalu" is supposed to express the feelings of some of those Caffres and Ghontas converted by the Missionary Williams, who after the devastating wars of 1818, 1819, were forced to become bondmen among the Boors, or imprisoned in Robber Island. See Philip's Researchs, pp. 190-192.