"Africa My Home"

The Africa that I know
Is not a marbled arch
With a church beside
The bustling crowd
Crossing the road
The lights green
Then red to glare
Home late again.

My veldt so bare
Watching my flocks
Waiting for the rain
A boundless space
So wild and free
My eyes could see
a world more wide
than the other side.

Europe no doubt
A mental mist
Does it exist?
Nameless for me
A trick of faces
A shade of pale
Is there a sun
to shine down.

O to be a vision
That you may see
Much farther off
Than a fenced horizon
The open air calling
A lioness from a den
Her cubs true bred
With me in the veldt.

Through the seasons
A stable door my farm
Open for the hounds
A torch flashed around
To track the spoors
Of the pride in the dark
Flashing their eyes
Snarling a warning sign.