sses of canvas, taut and strong,
Burning beneath a sun unreticent,
Raised upon planks, and lashed with rope and thong.
And she was fair, a sprig of English May,
Born for the kiss of merriment and day.

Wide from the tent, like swell on swell of sea
The great veld swept and rolled in curves away,
A shabby patch of God's eternity
Neglected by the angels, bare and grey,
Wind-swept and solitary. Dick and she
Had made this veld their home for seasons three.

_Well_ she remembered that first reckless ride,
Their wedding journey over spruit and land,
The barbed-wire straggling snares, the kopje side,
The crumbling blockhouse dreaming of command,
Holding a loot of empty pot and tin,
Which once had held a soldier guard within.

The mud-dogged drift, the dust all baked and red
Twisting in spiral devils, raw as rust,
Those lonely crosses leaning on their dead,
Murmuring Africa was never just.
"She knows no pity," shrieked the fierce South wind,
"She steals your youth and stultifies your mind."

On, on they flew, past Kaffir boom and kraal,
Thorn wacht-een-beetje, fleshy aloe clump,
Through the charred stretches of the high Transvaal,
By meerkat hole, and rounded white-ant hump
Of tunnelled earth. She laughed; the air was wild,
Strong with exhilaration, undefiled.

At last they reined. Across the scrub and veld
Dick pointed with his sjambok to the white
Outspreading tent, then to the wattle belt
That marshalled thinly in the shimmering light.
"There lies our home, dear love, for you and me."
She looked up gladly, smiled him tenderly.

Summer had followed winter, radiant, rich,
Reckless with life, extravagant in bloom,
Mad for the first wild draught of water, which
Burst from the thunder-clouds, whose massive gloom
Blackened the skies, then splitting, ripped and tore
Deep gorges through the tracks, with deafening roar.

The storms swept by. A fairyland of green
Mantled the waking plains; wide star-like flowers
Sprang to their feet; the streams ran strong and clean,
The soft mimosa sprinkled into showers
Of golden balls. The oleander hedge
Swayed to the line of gums with leaves on edge.

And it was summer now. Beth crossed the sloot,
Grown arrogant with rains, which lapped her square
Of gor