The Babiaantje

Hither, where tangled thickets of the acacia

Wreathed with a golden powder sigh,

And when the boughs grow dark, the hoopoe

Doubles his bell-like cry,

Spreading his bright striped wings and brown crest

Under a softening spring sky,

I have returned because I cannot rest,

And would not die.

Here it was as a boy that, I remember,

I wandered ceaselessly, and knew

Sweetness of spring was in the bird’s cry,

And in the hidden dew

The unbelievably keen perfume

Of the Babiaantje, a pale blue

Wild hyacinth that between narrow grey leaves

On the ground grew.

The flower will be breathing there now, should I wish

To search the grass beneath those trees,

And having found it, should go down

To snuff it, on my knees;

But now, although the crested hoopoe

Calls like a bell, how barren these

Rough ways and dusty woodlands look to one

Who has lost youth’s peace!