Hail, 1924, we offer you greetings,

Dusky one with beetling brows.

Bear your report to the One on High,

plead our case in elegant terms.

Peace! Oh, peace, 1924!

Behold the risen star;

let it alight on Maxeke, B.A.,

the only man who knows the fords.

Once he confused us by stumbling in starting,

urging return to battle.

Son of Maxeke, blaze a new trail

until King George sets his seal.

You raised the dust by stumbling in starting,

next thing we knew the cops had the cuffs on us.

Without seeming to do so I've sung your praises.

Oh I blundered in going to whites!

Africans, listen to what I've told you!

Will the years roll by and leave you

to die like locusts on blades of grass,

with pendulous jowls like the whites you serve?

Come back this year, Greybeard of ours,

you've sung the songs of the years.

Don't brag clasping cash that you'll never be penniless.

Look closely at 1924.

Thank God, Thunder-and-they-shudder,

another year dies but we're still alive.

Awu! Peace then, Father of even the tadpole,

stop our foes from breaching our ridges!

We salute you, 1924,

white-flanked kite of far-flung Africa,

stand tall like the ironwood safe from the axe,

thrust with your spear till rivers run dry.

Greybeard of ours, will the rolling years

leave you rooted to one spot?

Instruct your boys to return to battle:

hyenas ravage our royal sons.

We praise you, 1923,

great fosterhome for babies.

Quiet! No troubles all the year through!

Mercy then, Elephant browsing back home.

Make no mistake, 1924,

we Africans travel well armed,

we modern poets don't lounge about:

dogs will devour you on our turf.

If you send us in search of the causes

we'd learn all and have your head.

Look both ways on leaving home,

avoid hyenas going back to their lairs.

But rise, New Year star,

leave your nursing kraal, increase the herds:

yours is the kingdom, 1924,

today the people are yours.

Break the mould of years gone by:

bring southern Africa something new,

bellow at splotches of mud,

bellow at bulls of distant lands.

We salute you, 1924,

mist on the Drakensberg, heavenly snow;

fountain of unity, course down ravines,

bank your clouds over Africa.