NP van Wyk Louw het hierdie gedig waarskynlik rondom 1938 geskryf. Ek dink dis vandag meer toepaslik as wat dit toe was.
The great Afrikaans poet wrote this poem probably around 1938. I believe it is now even more appropriate than it was then.
O wye en droewe land
NP Van Wyk Louw
O wye en droewe land, alleen
onder die groot suidersterre.
Sal nooit ‘n hoë blydskap kom
deur jou stil droefenis?
Jy ken die pyn en eensaam lye
van onbewuste enkelinge,
die verre sterwe op die veld,
die klein begrafenis;
eenvoudige mense wat getrou
en enkeld bitter dinge doen,
en enkeld val soos korrels saad;
stil daad, klein trou, klein trouloosheid
van dié wat om ‘n ander diens soos knegte jou verlaat.
Sal nooit ‘n magtige skoonheid kom
oor jou soos die haelwit somerwolk
wat uitbloei oor jou donker berge,
en nooit in jou ‘n daad geskied
wat opklink oor die aarde en
die jare in hul onmag terge;
‘n grootsheid van so ‘n suiwer glans,
dat mense in ‘n verre land
wat van jou naam die melding hoor,
met wilde en helder oog sal staar
soos vroeë vaarders in die nag
verslae gesien het kim bo kim
die nuwe, blom-groot sterre styg
op uit jou see se wit gevaar?”
O wide and woeful land
Translated by Guy Butler
Oh wide and woeful land, alone
under the great southern stars,
will never and intense joy disturb
your calm unmoving grief
You know the lone souls, unaware
of their own suffering pain,
the far-off death upon the veld
the burial small and brief.
Simple people who perform
true and singly bitter things
and singly fall like grains of seed;
dumb deeds, small trust, small treachery
of those who for another lord
like serfs leave you in need.
Will never a mighty beauty come
like hail-white thunderheads that bloom
above your mountain’s darkest stance
and never a deed occur in you
to echo over the earth, and taunt
Time with its impotence?
A grandeur of so pure a gleam
that people in remotest lands,
hearing the rumour of your name,
with eye unclouded, wild, shall stare
like those old travellers in the night
who saw, astounded, rim after rim
new stars like flowers, lift and bloom
Out of your ocean’s foam and fear?
Veroni's Views 
Amen!
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By: Celeste on March 7, 2024
at 11:53 am