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175
AFRICA AD EUROPAM
Here for milleniads my immensityHath cloven the waters of the world and stretched
South from that sea of story and song to where
Welter, like thresholds of the infinite,
Surges that break upon the Antarctic Pole.
Ere through the granite of my loins had thronged
Sphinxes and obelisks that once were Thebes,
Were Karnak, I was old in memories.
The Pyramids are but my yesterdays;
The Ptolemies that many an age have lain
Shrivelling among their spice and linens, count
Only as upstarts from the soil I clasp.
And yet thou, Europe, wouldst invade me thus,
Thou that from Norway sheer to Greece my realm
Could compass, while it spared for surplusage
A continent Australia ill might match!
Why hast thou left me not, O Malcontent,
Sovereign of this my heritage from time?
Barbarian though I be, barbarianism
Is part and parcel of me, my nature's growth,
Heightening toward phases that the future stores
In mystery. Not by hest and hurry of thine
Should bud to flower be forced, or flower to fruit.
Nay, long I have watched thee from afar, with stare
Of wonderment, thou Europe, whose past swarms
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Of avarice, pride, voluptuousness, deceit
I have gazed on with abhorrence, thou to uplift
My savages, who hast thyself scarce found
Humanitarianism's mere fundaments!
Look to thine England, soaked in pauperdom;
Look to thy France, democracy's burlesque;
Look to thy Germany, a swagger of swords;
Look to thine Austria, torn with feuds and spites;
Thine Italy, a braggadocio armed;
Thy Spain, a corpse on horseback, like her Cid!
Thou thus to have lessoned me, thou riot of spleens,
Wrangling since Attila! Why hast thou dared
Pour this the mockery of thy tutelage
Among my lions and serpents and gazelles,
My deserts where thy London were a speck,
My forests that in gloom could sepulchre
Scores of thy Parises, my leagues of lakes,
My majesties of mountains, my repose
Of pampa or swamp, whose flat rims cleave the flames
Dawn lights or sunset lulls, my glory and grace
Of rivers, and my cataracts—altars raised
Heavenward in scintillance, with haze of pearl
For incense? Fain my Genius would attend
Undesecrate the centuries' doles of doom,
Here girt with swarthy myriads, men like thine.
Fain unmolestedly would I live out
The individuality of my lot.
Thou hast achieved thy destiny. For me
It flares all folly and failure. I mine own
Would solve unmarred. Back, tamperer, to thy brawls!
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