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Anonymous translation from the German
THE LION is the desert’s king; through his domain so wide | |
| Right swiftly and right royally this night he means to ride. | |
| By the sedgy brink, where the wild herds drink, close couches the grim chief; | |
| The trembling sycamore above whispers with every leaf. | |
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| At evening, on the Table Mount, when ye can see no more | 5 |
| The changeful play of signals gay; when the gloom is speckled o’er | |
| With kraal fires; when the Caffre wends home through the lone karroo; | |
| When the boshbok in the thicket sleeps, and by the stream the gnu; | |
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| Then bend your gaze across the waste,—what see ye? The giraffe, | |
| Majestic, stalks towards the lagoon, the turbid lymph to quaff; | 10 |
| With outstretched neck and tongue adust, he kneels him down to cool | |
| His hot thirst with a welcome draught from the foul and brackish pool. | |
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| A rustling sound, a roar, a bound,—the lion sits astride | |
| Upon his giant courser’s back. Did ever king so ride? | |
| Had ever king a steed so rare, caparisons of state | 15 |
| To match the dappled skin whereon that rider sits elate? | |
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| In the muscles of the neck his teeth are plunged with ravenous greed; | |
| His tawny mane is tossing round the withers of the steed. | |
| Up leaping with a hollow yell of anguish and surprise, | |
| Away, away, in wild dismay, the cameleopard flies. | 20 |
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| His feet have wings; see how he springs across the moonlit plain! | |
| As from their sockets they would burst, his glaring eyeballs strain; | |
| In thick black streams of purling blood, full fast his life is fleeting; | |
| The stillness of the desert hears his heart’s tumultuous beating. | |
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| Like the cloud that, through the wilderness, the path of Israel traced,— | 25 |
| Like an airy phantom, dull and wan, a spirit of the waste,— | |
| From the sandy sea uprising, as the water-spout from ocean, | |
| A whirling cloud of dust keeps pace with the courser’s fiery motion. | |
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| Croaking companion of their flight, the vulture whirs on high; | |
| Below, the terror of the fold, the panther fierce and sly, | 30 |
| And hyenas foul, round graves that prowl, join in the horrid race; | |
| By the footprints wet with gore and sweat, their monarch’s course they trace. | |
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| They see him on his living throne, and quake with fear, the while | |
| With claws of steel he tears piecemeal his cushion’s painted pile. | |
| On! on! no pause, no rest, giraffe, while life and strength remain! | 35 |
| The steed by such a rider backed may madly plunge in vain. | |
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| Reeling upon the desert’s verge, he falls, and breathes his last; | |
| The courser, stained with dust and foam, is the rider’s fell repast. | |
| O’er Madagascar, eastward far, a faint flush is descried:— | |
| Thus nightly, o’er his broad domain, the king of beasts doth ride. | 40 |
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