dodger wrote:Why seal yourself inside a building when you can appreciate God's work in the great outdoors? I can recall a multitude of sundays as a lad bored rigid in church just waiting to get out in the fresh air - the feeling persists and Sunday is the one day I always try to get out on the bike.
The Veldt.By Percival Gibbon
From the anthology South African Poetry and Verse,
selected by E H Crouch, 1907
Cast the window wider, sonny,
Let me see the veldt,
Rolling grandly to the sunset
Where the mountains melt,
With the sharp horizon round it,
Like a silver belt.
Years and years I've trekked across it,
Ridden back and fore,
Till the silence and the glamour
Ruled me to the core;
No man ever knew it better;
None could love it more.
There's a balm for crippled spirits
In the open view,
Running from your very footsteps
Out into the blue,
Like a wagon-track to heaven,
Straight 'twixt God and you.
There's a magic, soul-compelling,
In the boundless space,
And it grows upon you, sonny,
Like a woman's face -
Passionate and pale and tender,
With a marble grace.
There's the sum of all religion
In its mightiness;
Winged truths, beyond your doubting,
Close about you press.
God is greater in the open -
Little man is less.
There's a voice pervades its stillness,
Wonderful and clear;
Tongues of prophets and of angels,
Whispering far and near,
Speak an everlasting gospel
To the spirit's ear.
There's a sense you gather, sonny,
In the open air;
Shift your burden ere it break you:
God will take His share.
Keep your end up for your own sake;
All the rest's His care.
There’s a promise, if you need it,
For the time to come;
All the veldt is loud and vocal
Where the Bible’s dumb.
Heaven is paved with gold for parsons,
But it’s grassed for some.
There’s a spot I know of, sonny,
Yonder by the stream;
Bushes handy for the fire,
Water for the team.
By the old home outspan, sonny,
Let me lie and dream.
