RESIGNATION.

IMITATION OF AN OLD POET.

My father is dead, and my mother is dead-
They sleep beneath the churchyard tree :
And my brothers so brave, are all in the grave,
The greedy grave that yawns for me.
I am an orphan, without a friend-
Courage, my heart, for life will end.

I was the delight of a gallant knight,
And he vowed he only lived for me;
But the turtle, I trow, is doomed to woe,

While her faithless mate away doth flee.
Courage, my heart, and bear the wrong-
Life is short, though sorrow is strong.

I had a sweet child, on me he smiled,
And bade me live his fame to see;

But the death-storm blew, and the cold night dew
Blasted the rose so dear to me.

I wrapped him in his winding sheet,

And strewed him with flowers as frail and sweet.

My kindred are dead, my love is fled;

Courage, my heart, thou canst love no more; Pale is my cheek, my body is weak;

Courage, my heart, 'twill soon be o'er. Dim are my eyes, with tears of sorrow; They ache for a night, without a morrow.

THE BECHUANA BOY.

BY THOMAS PRINGLE.

The chief incidents of this little tale were related to the author by an African boy, whom he first met with near the borders of the Great Karroo or Arid Desert. The expression of the orphan stranger, when asked about his kindred, was literally (as translated by him into broken Dutch)-"Ik ben alleenig in de waereld!" i. e. "I am all alone in the world." A few slight circumstances, characteristic of the country, are almost all that has been added to poor Marossi's affecting narrative.

The system of outrage and oppression of which this story exhibits a specimen, has been ably developed by the Rev. Dr. Philip, in his "Researches in South Africa."

The following terms perhaps require explanation for general readers:

Bergenaars-Mountaineers, a marauding horde of Griqua or
Mulatto lineage, inhabiting the skirts of the Stormberg moun-
tains, beyond the north eastern frontier of the Cape Colony.
Bushman-A wild Hottentot.

Gareep-Native name of the great Orange River.
Springbok-Antilope Pygara or Euchore.

Wild-dog-Wild-hond of the Colonists-Hyæna Venatica.
Sea-cow, or Zeekoe-The Colonial term for the Hippopotamus.
Utika i. e. Beautiful-The Supreme Spirit.

I SAT at noontide in my tent

And looked across the Desert dun,
That 'neath the cloudless firmament
Lay gleaming in the sun,

When from the bosom of the waste
A swarthy stripling came in haste,
With foot unshod and naked limb,
And a tame springbok following him.

He came with open aspect bland,
And modestly before me stood,
Caressing with a kindly hand
That fawn of gentle brood;

Then, meekly gazing in my face,
Said in the language of his race,
With smiling look, yet pensive tone,
"Stranger, I'm in the world alone !"

"Poor boy," I said, "thy kindred's home,
Beyond far Stormberg's ridges blue,
Why hast thou left so young, to roam
This desolate Karroo ?"

The smile forsook him while I spoke ;
And when again he silence broke,
It was with many a stifled sigh
He told this strange sad history.

"I have no kindred!" said the boy:
"The Bergenaars, by night they came,
And raised their murder-shout of joy,
While o'er our huts the flame
Rushed like a torrent; and their yell
Pealed louder as our warriors fell
In helpless heaps beneath their shot,
One living man they left us not!

"The slaughter o'er, they gave the slain

To feast the foul-beaked birds of prey;
And with our herds across the plain
They hurried us away—

The widowed mothers and their brood:
Oft, in despair, for drink and food
We vainly cried, they heeded not,

But with sharp lash the captives smote.

"Three days we tracked that dreary wild, Where thirst and anguish pressed us sore;

And many a mother and her child

Lay down to rise no more:

334

THE BECHUANA BOY.

Behind us, on the desert brown,
We saw the vultures swooping down;
And heard, as the grim light was falling,
The gorged wolf to his comrade calling.

"At length was heard a river sounding
'Midst that dry and dismal land,
And, like a troop of wild deer bounding,
We hurried to its strand;

Among the maddened cattle rushing,
The crowd behind still forward pushing,
Till in the flood our limbs were drenched,
And the fierce rage of thirst was quenched.

"Hoarse-roaring, dark, the broad Gareep
In turbid streams was sweeping fast,
Huge sea-cows in its eddies deep
Loud snorting as we passed;

But that relentless robber clan

Right through those waters wild and wan
Drove on like sheep our captive host,
Nor staid to rescue wretches lost.

"All shivering from the foaming flood,
We stood upon the stranger's ground,
When, with proud looks and gesture rude,
The white men gathered round:
And there, like cattle from the fold,
By Christians we were bought and sold,—
'Midst laughter loud and looks of scorn,-
And roughly from each other torn.

"My mother's scream so long and shrill,
My little sister's wailing cry,

(In dreams I often hear them still!)
Rose wildly to the sky.

A tiger's heart came to me then,
And madly 'mong those ruthless men
I sprang!-Alas! dashed on the sand,
Bleeding, they bound me foot and hand.

"Away-away on bounding steeds
The white man-stealers fleetly go,
Through long low valleys fringed with reeds,
O'er mountains capped with snow,—
Each with his captive, far and fast;
Until yon rock-bound ridge was passed,
And distant stripes of cultured soil,
Bespoke the land of tears and toil.

"And tears and toil have been my lot Since I the white man's thrall became, And sorer griefs I wish forgot

Harsh blows and burning shame.

Oh, English chief! thou ne'er canst know
The injured bondsman's bitter woe,

When round his heart, like scorpions, cling

Black thoughts, that madden while they sting!

"Yet this hard fate I might have borne, And taught in time my soul to bend, Had my sad yearning breast forlorn

But found a single friend:

My race extinct or far removed,

The boor's rough brood I could have lovedBut each to whom my bosom turned

Even like a hound the black boy spurned!

"While, friendless thus, my master's flocks
I tended on the upland waste,

It chanced this fawn leapt from the rocks,
By wolfish wild-dogs chased: