REH Word of the Week: kopje
Monday, September 28, 2009
posted by Barbara Barrett
kopje
noun
1. small, usually rocky hill, especially on the African veldt
[origin: 1848; Africaans koppie]
HOWARD’S USAGE:
The warm veldt spread beneath the tropic sun,
I climbed a rocky kopje and sat down.
The baboons chattered, full of rage
At me, invader of their dens, but came not near me.
So I sat, and watched the cattle grazing on the veldt.
Herded by small, half-naked Kaffir boys,
Who, as they herded, played their Kaffir games,
And ran about the veldt, waving their wooden spears
To mimic war.
A jackal slunk from bush to bush
Behind a kopje. Furtive, sly,
Stalking a small veldt-deer who caught his scent
And fled away. And o’er across the veldt I saw
The kraal of Umlaganna,
Chief of the Matabeles.
[from "The Chief of the Matabeles"; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 25 and A Rhyme of Salem Town, p. 141]
This is the tale the Kaffirs tell
as the tints of twilight melt
And the jackal jeers from the kopje’s stones
and the nighttime veils the veldt;
As the cooking fires begin to glow
and the lounging braves match tales,
This is the story the ancients tell
in far, fire-lighted kraals:
Chaka sat in his throne of state;
no girls that dance or sing
Bent supple forms in the palace hut
for Chaka the Zulu king.
For Chaka the king was a man of war
and his hands with blood were red
And never a girl could thrill his soul
as the sight of the spear-rent dead.
[from "The Zulu Lord"; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 202]
