Before my country had been South Africa, and when I thought of home it had been the wide sun-steeped spaces of the veld or some scented glen of the Berg.

But now I realized that I had a new home.

I understood what a precious thing this little England was, how old and kindly and comforting, how wholly worth striving for.

The freedom of an acre of her soil was cheaply bought by the blood of the best of us.

I knew what it meant to be a poet, though for the life of me I could not have made a line of verse.