For a long time now we've been calling, Africa.

Hear our wailing, Garden of Africa!!

Your crop was consumed and scattered by birds,

but you stood firm and never left us.

Our voices are hoarse from imploring you;

we track through nations, appeal to phantoms,

nothing more than chickens’ scratchings,

eager at dawn, at dusk empty-handed.

We call to you from Table Bay,

we call to you from Algoa Bay,

we call to you from Grahamstown,

clutching satchels crammed with half-jacks;

drunk to death we call you home,

we cover your eyes and proclaim you blind,

you go right back to where you came from

as we call you home from the depths of depravity.

You say “Come back”? You must come back!!

You're profit to all the earth's nations,

they come from the north, they come from the south,

from the east and from the west.

Africa stayed! She's nowhere else:

look how the grass continues to sprout.

Look at the springs still bubbling with water.

Look all around, it's all in its place!

Will you go to the grave with nothing achieved,

raising your cry, calling “Come back”?

If you come back first the nation will rise

and news of its stirring will ring out to Jericho.

But tell us, Africa, where else in the world

can any old fool say “Come home”?

From my point of view, we bear all the signs

as we stumble along in stupidity.

From the Buffalo's banks we raise our cry,

from the Tyhume's banks we raise our cry

for all the black nations under the sun,

so Satan's ashamed until his guts bust.

You display no love, display no togetherness,

you sit on the fence, won't take a stand.

Nothing but sell-outs, you set fires and run,

betray your own people to bolster the whites.

Are you raising a cry, saying “Come back”?

You'll cry yourselves hoarse: you must come back!

Gone are our customs for setting up homesteads,

monarchy, values, nothing is left!

You live like locusts left by the swarm,

you've lost all pride, your sense of a nation,

lock, stock and barrel, everything's lost:

you seek balm in the bottle that blots out all pain.