How sad a deserted home is!

Its people once were blessed,

its gates now stand unattended,

and its enemies reign supreme.

Mercy!

Mercy, Garden of Africa,

spiders who once clung to you

will spin your home to a cliff

and leave it for European orphans.

Bring to mind the days of Ntsikana,

who left wonders in this land;

his voice comes whirling back today.

Can a seasoned debater dispute this?

Bring to mind the days of our fathers.

Before the word came they wore grass skirts,

but you tended them on the slopes

like the flocks on Mount Gilead.

Where's your vale of tears,

where tears flow as you talk

of oppression that dragged us down,

casting spells right to the Mpondo?

The vale of tears! Hear the wailing!

We were beaten by lie after lie:

The nation gone! Head in the dust,

like an ostrich confronted by force.

Where is your vale of tears,

where tears flow as you talk?

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

Nongqawuse caused the cattle to bleat.

We travel a bramble-strewn road.

God uses whites to oppress us:

we spurned tradition, were beaten by lies,

now we fight for our footing on slippery slopes.

Turn Phalo's land on its head, Mgqwetho,

whack nations and sap their standing.

Wild beast too fierce to take from behind,

let old maids screen their bodies in bodices.

In vain we abandoned allegiance,

let it slip as we took foreign service.

Our eyes and ears were witness

to the looting of home and kingship.

It's brandy that ruined the blacks:

how many died dirty deaths?

Our gifted, our learned

drowned in skokiaan.

God uses whites to oppress us!

Mercy, Greedy Elephant grazing the tops,

you were shaped by the word, we were shaped by fingers.

Yours is the day, yours the night.