You say we bushmen cannot love— <br />Our lives are too prosaic: hence <br />We lose or lack that finer sense <br />That raises some few men above <br />Their fellows, setting them apart <br />As vessels of a finer make— <br />The acme of the potter’s art— <br />Are placed apart upon the shelf. <br />So he is more than common delf, <br />And, more than brute in human guise, <br />Who, seeking, finds his nobler self <br />Twin-mirrored in a woman’s eyes! <br />Yet these things bring their penalty: <br />For oft the merest touch will break <br />These vessels of a finer make; <br />And throats attuned to noblest key <br />A draught of air will set awry, <br />And stifle in an ulcerous sore <br />The voice that floated to the sky <br />And silence it for evermore . . . <br /> <br />You say we bushmen cannot love— <br />That, like our foe, the fire-fiend, <br />We blaze, until a river-bend— <br />Nay, less, a pebble-graven groove <br />Where waters thread—doth bid us stay: <br />Our passions for a month, a week <br />Flare out and then they die away— <br />For separation, like the creek <br />That stays the bush fire, bars the way. <br /> <br />You say we bushmen cannot love. <br />Well, have it so! but this I swear— <br />That she possessed a power to move <br />The dullest boor to do or dare. <br />But I, as being somewhat shy, <br />Became the target for her wit <br />How oft in wantonness she’d pit <br />The blazing lances of her eye <br />And keener rapier of her tongue, <br />That carelessly made lightning play, <br />Until to action I was stung, <br />And, like a dumb beast, stood at bay . . .<br /><br />Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-bushman-s-love/
