A Paean For My Country Poem by Gert Strydom

Let freedom and victory get a own song
from the fields of blood and gore
while perished the men that were young
lie in silence forevermore.

At last, at last the darkness has passed
and over us, our country a new day breaks
that is in its glory unsurpassed
while as if coming from death we are awake.

Away our doubts and fears are swept
while for too many years
sacrifices we have made, our widows have wept
tears of pain and their tears

are now of sheer happiness
a feeling without any kind of pain,
as if a kind of holiness
descends upon the land to remain

while every man and women is free
and all hostility is swept away
as men and women live in fraternity,
are kin and neighbours at the brake of day.

l’Envoi

This paean might only still be just a dream
where at times still some blood do spill
and I wish people from hatred to redeem;
that no one wishes another ill.

Awake, arise and wait my fatherland
for true changes to come to every heart and mind,
for God to stretch out His delivering hand
and us to stop to be severally blind.