  Why are we going? Joking apart— To wake our soul, and lift our heart, To wear the crust from the mildewed brain, And stand in the ranks of the world again. To see, hear, feel, each beauteous thing; That civilisation alone can bring; To walk ’neath roofs that knew the flow Of music, centuries ago; To stand in temples where have trod, For ages, worshippers of God; To stand by marts where Argosies At anchor lie, from distant seas, Ships that say: “all ’neath the sun By ties of nature are made one;” Ships that tell with their white wings furled How throbs with one great pulse the world! Why are we going? To see, though men, The Home where we lived as boys, again; To see her face in its sunset glow, That lighted the Home of our Long ago, To feel our rough rind fall away, And our hearts receive the light of day. Let us drop the pen, and the lightsome word, And think of that dear old Home. How stirred Are memories as we sit and sigh, And the years on lightning feet flit by, And the patient Love, the watchful care, Rise out of the distant landscape fair, For her, who now longs with tear-filled eyes To welcome the way-worn wand’rer home, Just as of old her boy will come! No change in the love, that bore all ills, As eternal as God’s own grassy hills. A. Brodrick. Pretoria, 1879. [Image of decorative bar not available.] |
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