[Brian Watson]

Looking for a Roy Campbell poem on behalf of a family friend. Googling around with a couple half-remembered phrases eventually turned up:

The love of nature burning in his heart,
Our new St Francis offers us his book,
The Saint, who fed the birds at Bondelswart
and fattened up the vultures at Bulhoek.

(That's a cobbling together two versions, both of which, on metrical considerations, appear to be misquotations)

Does anybody know the name of the poem, whether the above wording is correct, and whether there are more verses? It's about Smuts.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Here it is, copied straight from Adamastor (1930), p. 103:

Holism

The love of Nature burning in his heart,
Our new Saint Francis offers us his book—
The saint who fed the birds at Bondleswaart
And fattened up the vultures at Bull Hoek.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Coming back to this, since your post set me to reading more in Adamastor. There’s another reference to Smuts in that book, and to Bull Hoek and Bondlesaart, in a poem called “A Veld Eclogue” (a longish poem). It’s a political satire in the form of an eclogue. At the end of the poem, when one of the “shepherds” has finished speaking, the narrator comments:

So Johnny sang. His song was brief and true—
Had Creswell, Smuts or Hertzog half his nous,
There would be far more goats on the Karroo
And far less in the Senate and the House.

The historical and political allusions go right over my head, but a note in the back of the book, by Campbell, says that Bull Hoek in the poem refers to a shooting raid there on an unarmed religious sect, and that Bondleswaart was the sit of a bombing raid on a village that had complained of a dog-tax.

Campbell was always polemical. And a superb writer.

I’m curious: why is your friend looking for the poem?

[Brian Watson]

Thanks Andrew. My father's friend is a South African expatriate, part of the academic diaspora of the 60s, and had been reading a history of South Africa, which reminded him of the poem.

That verse has an edge to it all right.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Brian good to see you here again and thanks for this thread which prodded my curiousity.

Eratosphere is my university. In a few years I have my MFA from here. Today was the history module.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Campbell_(poet)

this next link is from that above

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garman_Sisters

(Or maybe the gossip module) I know that painting very well, but didn't know the story behind it.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Janice, you might already have seen this but just in case . . .

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...light=campbell

[Janice D. Soderling]

Shame on me. No I don't remember this thread.

It may sometimes seem that I am camped in a pup tent on this site, but actually I'm not.

I've printed it out though and will have it while having lunch. Thx, Andrew.