The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-07-13
From Pringlc's Poetical Works.
Afar in the Desert.

Altar in the Desert love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side
When the of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the Present, cling to the Past;
When the eye is sunused with regrefu tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fed,
Fit the brain, like ghosts of the dead:
Bright visions of glory--that vanished too soon;
Day -drcams-that departed manhood's noon;
Attachments-by fate or by faschood reit:
Companions of early days-lost or left;
And my native land-whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame,
The home Of my childhood; the haunts of my prime;
All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time
When the feelings young and the world was new
Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view;
All-all forsak en-forgotten-
And Ia lone exile, remembered by nome
Ny high aims abandoned-my good acts undone-
Aweary of all that is under the sun
With that sadness of heart which stranger may
/ fly to the Desert afar from man!
Afar in the Desert love to ride.
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side
When the wild turmoil of this wearsome life,
With its of oppression, corruption, and strife
The proud mans frown, and the base mans fear
The scorner's laugh, and the sufferers tear
And malice, and mcanness, and falsehood and folly,
Dispose me to musng and dark melancholy;
When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high
And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh
Oh! then there is freedom, and Joy, and pride,
Afar in the Desert alone TO ride!
There is rapture to vault on the cham ping steed,
And to bound away with the eagles speed,
With the death-fraught frelock in my hand
The only law of the Desert land!
Afar in the Desert love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away-away from the dwellings, of men,
BY the wild deer's haunt, by the buifalo's glen:
BY valleys remote where the orib plays,
Where the gum the gazele and the hartebeest grace
And the kudu and Gland unlimited rcclne
BY the skirts Of grey forests o'ehung with wildyine
Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,
And the river horse gambols unsecured in the food,
And the mighty rhinoceros walows at will
In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his fill.
Afar inthe Desert F.loye to ride,
With the silent Dush-boy alone by my side;
D er the brown Karroo, where the nccting cry
Of the sprngboks fawn sounds plantively:
And the tmorous, quagga's shrll whistling neigh
Is heard by the fountain at twilight grey;
Where the zebra wantonly losses his name,
With wild hoof securing the desolae plain;
And the fleet footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like horseman whoraTels in haste,
lleing away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scoped their nest,
Far hid from the ptess pundoror's view,
In the painless depths of pafched karroo.
Afar in the Desert l love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
Away-away-in the wilderness vast,
Where the white man foot hath never passed.
And the quivercd Coranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his rowing clan:
A region Of emptiness, bowling and dl ear,
That man hath abandoned from famine and fear;
Which the snake and the lizard nhabit alone,
With the twilight bat from the yawnng stone;
where grass, nor horb, nor shrub takes root
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot
And the bitter melon, for food and drin',
s the pilgrims fare by the salt lakes brink:
region of drought where river glidcs,
Nor ripping brook with osiered Sides;
where sedgy pool, bubbling fount
Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,
appears, to refresh the aching eve:
3ut the barren earth, and the burning skv
And the blank horizon, round and feund
'pread-void of living light or sound
Ind here, while night winds round me sigh
Ind the stars burn bright in the mid-niph hit skv
As sit apart by the desert stone
ike Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,
still small voice. comes through the wild,
Like father consong his fretful chd)
7hich banishes bitterness wrath and fear
aying-MAN Is DISTANT, BUT GOD NEAR!