Ode on the British Settlers’ Year of Jubilee

Epoch of hope! Auspicious year;
Our pride to see;
Hail to thy bright eventful advent here--
Grand Jubilee!
Since on these shores--our lot was cast,
Of years, seven Sabbaths number with the past;
Thy dawn, O sacred year! proclaim we now at last.

Chime for the Settlers’ Jubilee,--
Spire, turret, fane!
Resound abroad, with quickening ecstasy,
The proud refrain.
Late, by the Gospel-trumpet called--
O Africa! in Satan’s bondage galled,
Shout for the Jubilee, with spirit disenthralled.

Kloof, table-land, and peak sublime,
Take up the peal;
Chide o’er this wondrous, Heaven-acknowledged clime,
Man’s flagging zeal.
From that far bound, where hope first rose
On Lusitanian Vasco’s gathering woes,
To regions far beyond--where Transvaal Jordan flows.

How vast in prospect, mortal man,
One Spring appears!
In retrospect, how limited the span
Of fifty years!
Yet gaze around,--how few remain,
Who, in this land, first shared our joy or pain!
Nor doubt we, honoured dead, our loss has been your gain.

Shamgars and Jairs! our heroes true,
Your types of yore
Gain not by fair comparison with you,
In heaven-sent lore.
No chief, on Seir’s, or Bochim’s brow,
Not Gera’s son, nor him of “the rash vow,”
In zeal, for cause of right--transcends your glory now.

Your god-like clemency to life,
In conflicts fell;
The Zeebs and Orebs of each mortal strife,
Survive to tell.
The ruthless hand, with dagger bared,
In hour of conquest, by your mercy spared,
Has since, as that of friend, your love and bounty shared.

Far better learned your skill to pierce
The forest King;
Transfix grim Isgram, or the tiger fierce,
In his death-spring.
Like Kabzeel’s Worthy who could dare,
In time of snow, to savage haunts repair,
And slay the monster huge, e’en in his gory lair.

Not gold but prowess then was fame,
Throughout this land;
True stalwart valour was the test of claim
To Beauty’s hand.
What marvel to acquire such bays,
Each tried to emulate his fellow’s praise?
Oh, there were mighty men,--yea, “giants in those days”--

Then learned Moodie, Temlett sage,
And valiant Graham,
Bequeathed, in turn, to the historic page,
A lasting name.
As others of no mean degree,
Whose statesmen ken, and iron chivalry
Might worthily attain the rank of “the first Three.”

This of the dead,--embalmed in tears,
In fame alive;
And can we less revere their loved compeers,
Who still survive?
Ah no! their lives, to many a prayer,
Long, very long, may Heaven benignly spare,
And long each honoured brow its crown of glory wear.

Unwooed, chaste Clio, ever young,
Descends to save
Her British Settlers from Detraction’s tongue,
And Lethe’s wave.
The names of the adventurous few,
Her lamp of Truth displays aloft in view,
Enshrined among the world’s regenerators true.

Unutterably fair, behold,
The goddess bright!
In form and visage of ethereal mould,
Enrobed in light!
With golden harps--a seraph band,
Less prominent her tuneful sisters stand--
And thus a child of earth receives her high command:--

“Thou, favoured of the Vestal Nine;
Forensic Cole!
The special delegated task be thine,
Beyond control;
To celebrate this Jubilee--
In Delphic tones--not uninspired by me,
That envy’s self shall mark, for immortality.

Fail not to chronicle a state,
Beset with woes,
When, like Apollo, on its vision--late
Wise Porter rose;
Embodiment of Hyde and Hume--
My future Aristides to assume
In every council sway, and change a nation’s doom.”

It comes! the dawn of brighter times--
When, to our shores,
The ships of Chittim and remoter climes
Shall bend their oars!
When Africa, distressed no more,
Shall nobly emulate Columbia’s shore,
In European might, and Asiatic lore.

It comes, it comes! ye brethren dear,
Loud swell the song;
Lo, balmy Abib ushers in the year,
Expected long!
Illustrious in your thousands come!
High in your ancestors’ adopted home,
Raise to triumphal notes the grand memorial dome.

Rouse, Jubilants, by Truth made free,
Stand ever true;
Nor be your sires Promethean energy
Extinct in you.
Forget not,--even in Canaan’s land,
Though borne to conquest--with a mighty hand,
Your faithfulness to prove--unconquered nations stand.

Thrones raised upon our primal fall,
Yet mock the skies!
Fierce and unvanquished still,--yea, worthy all
Your war emprize.
Press, in His cause, expectant on,
Whose sovereign Presence, ever unwithdrawn
Inspires our Faith and Hope, in this Millennial dawn.