A Red Blanket Addresses Christians- Nontsizi Mgqwetho
Where are your daughters? Cat got your tongue?
They roamed the countryside searching for marriage,
Shamelessly shacked up with live-in lovers,
Cut capers in Newclare till all hours of the night.
With rheumy eyes their mothers bewail
Their absent family, who left them standing,
Advising the air and pleading in vain
With sons and daughters who’ve all been to school.
Gaols crammed to capacity, courts jam-packed
With the learned products of school education;
The judges in charge just hoot in derision
At college certificates brandished by bums.
Our every crook can be found in the schools,
Our every thief can be found in the schools,
Our every rogue can be found in the schools:
I swear by Nontsizi, I swear you should all be kicked out!
You still wear red blankets in God’s very house,
You’re Christians by day, hyenas by night;
The pastor’s the shepherd of God’s own flock,
yet scurries by without a nod.
,What do we make of this curious behaviour?
Which voice do we choose from their babble?
You Christians harbour pride in your midst,
Cloaking God in crocodile hide.
You Christians are suckers for every fad,
You discard skin garments and dressed up like whites,
Your ears ring for white man’s booze,
But whites won’t touch a drop of yours.
Every Sunday you romp on the veld,
Kicking a football, whacking a racquet,
Clothing your shame in the name of God:
Satan’s jaw drops in amazement.
You’re have no love, you’re nothing at all,
And yet you proclaim a God of love:
That faith of yours stands just as tall
As I do down on my knees.
If you should ever approach us again,
We red blankets will roast you like meat.
But of course I don’t wish to imply
That God’s words are devoid of truth.
Mercy!
, The Zulu Girl - Roy Campbell
When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder
Down where the sweating gang its labour plies
A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder
Unslings her child tormented by flies.
She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
By the thorn-tree: purpled with the blood of ticks,
While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled
Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.
His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple,
Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feels;
Through his frail nerves her own deep languor's ripple
Like a broad river sighing through the reeds.
Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes
And old unquenched, unsmotherable heat-
The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,
The sullen dignity of their defeat.
Her body looms above him like a hill
Within whose shade a village lies at rest,
Or the first cloud so terrible and still
That bears the coming harvest in its breast.
, The Slave Dealer - Thomas Pringle
From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame
By the ill course he had run.
There was hot fever in his blood,
And dark thoughts in his brain;
And oh! to turn his heart to good
That Mother strove in vain,
For fierce and fearful was his mood,
Racked by remorse and pain.
And if, at times, a gleam more mild
Would o'er his features stray,
When knelt the Widow near her Child,
And he tried with her to pray,
It lasted not for visions wild
Still scared good thoughts away.
"There's blood upon my hands!" he said,
"Which water cannot wash;
It was not shed where warriors bled
It dropped from the gory lash,
As I whirled it o'er and o'er my head,
And with each stroke left a gash.
Where are your daughters? Cat got your tongue?
They roamed the countryside searching for marriage,
Shamelessly shacked up with live-in lovers,
Cut capers in Newclare till all hours of the night.
With rheumy eyes their mothers bewail
Their absent family, who left them standing,
Advising the air and pleading in vain
With sons and daughters who’ve all been to school.
Gaols crammed to capacity, courts jam-packed
With the learned products of school education;
The judges in charge just hoot in derision
At college certificates brandished by bums.
Our every crook can be found in the schools,
Our every thief can be found in the schools,
Our every rogue can be found in the schools:
I swear by Nontsizi, I swear you should all be kicked out!
You still wear red blankets in God’s very house,
You’re Christians by day, hyenas by night;
The pastor’s the shepherd of God’s own flock,
yet scurries by without a nod.
,What do we make of this curious behaviour?
Which voice do we choose from their babble?
You Christians harbour pride in your midst,
Cloaking God in crocodile hide.
You Christians are suckers for every fad,
You discard skin garments and dressed up like whites,
Your ears ring for white man’s booze,
But whites won’t touch a drop of yours.
Every Sunday you romp on the veld,
Kicking a football, whacking a racquet,
Clothing your shame in the name of God:
Satan’s jaw drops in amazement.
You’re have no love, you’re nothing at all,
And yet you proclaim a God of love:
That faith of yours stands just as tall
As I do down on my knees.
If you should ever approach us again,
We red blankets will roast you like meat.
But of course I don’t wish to imply
That God’s words are devoid of truth.
Mercy!
, The Zulu Girl - Roy Campbell
When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder
Down where the sweating gang its labour plies
A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder
Unslings her child tormented by flies.
She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
By the thorn-tree: purpled with the blood of ticks,
While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled
Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.
His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple,
Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feels;
Through his frail nerves her own deep languor's ripple
Like a broad river sighing through the reeds.
Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes
And old unquenched, unsmotherable heat-
The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,
The sullen dignity of their defeat.
Her body looms above him like a hill
Within whose shade a village lies at rest,
Or the first cloud so terrible and still
That bears the coming harvest in its breast.
, The Slave Dealer - Thomas Pringle
From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame
By the ill course he had run.
There was hot fever in his blood,
And dark thoughts in his brain;
And oh! to turn his heart to good
That Mother strove in vain,
For fierce and fearful was his mood,
Racked by remorse and pain.
And if, at times, a gleam more mild
Would o'er his features stray,
When knelt the Widow near her Child,
And he tried with her to pray,
It lasted not for visions wild
Still scared good thoughts away.
"There's blood upon my hands!" he said,
"Which water cannot wash;
It was not shed where warriors bled
It dropped from the gory lash,
As I whirled it o'er and o'er my head,
And with each stroke left a gash.
