Jehovah, replenish our days on earth,

as you did in the time of our fathers.

Did you forsake us forever,

Elephant grazing the plains of Canaan?

I'll roar my basic position

like thunder over Umtata.

I'll even take a Khoi to wife,

useless as long-left ruins.

For long we've been calling, our voices are hoarse,

there, Africa's petticoat's dropped.

Africa, have you been trashed

like a plate of little worth?

“You've been weighed and found to be wanting.”

The Ancient Creator's voice struck home.

The fingers’ inscription proclaims

your country's been taken, handed to others.

But today, I want you to understand,

ask yourself if I'm telling the truth:

seek the source of your condition,

why you're so and why you starve.

Africa, have you been trashed

like a plate of little worth?

When we reached the white man's cities

we drank the brews of foreign gods.

Africa, have you been trashed

like a plate of little worth?

Our customs went off to the whites

while we admired foreign gods.

Birds devour you, Garden of Africa.

I saw a baboon with dirty teeth.

Our voices are hoarse from imploring you.

We criss-crossed the land calling to you.

Peace!

I'll roar returning to where I began,

I came when they said I'd come,

babes at the breast even swear by me,

kings prance and stamp in the yards.

Peace!

Africa, have you been trashed

like a plate of little worth?

Your family's left you; your stock have left you:

they're now the stock of the Mutton Gluttons.

Today you're ploughed by fiery wagons;

we don't plough, we bellow “Wailings”.

There the Chinese have brought their malt.

Mercy, hills of a land of springs!

Peace!

While your people die, strangers cart off your country.

Wake up! Death was put to sleep, you said!

There the Indians have brought their bananas,

and the kids of Manana still play with dolls.

Peace, plains of our motherland!

Induce birth pangs in your people.

Scale the mountain slopes like flocks

heading for snow-capped heights.

Peace indeed!