Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- No Wings
- Preface to Second Edition
- Foreword to Second Edition
- Introduction to Second Edition
- A Note of History
- Should I Ever…
- THE COUNTRYSIDE
- AKAN
- EWE
- GA-ADANGME
- DAGOMBA
- HAUSA
- THE TOWN
- Tumble-Down Woods
- Tough Guy in Town
- In the Streets of Accra
- Snuff and the Ashes
- Radio Dance Hour
- This is Experience Speaking
- Palm Leaves of Childhood
- Hot Day
- The Literary Society
- It's Ritual Murder
- The Wrong Packing Case
- Lines on Korle Bu
- Pay Day
- The Walk of Life (Agbezoli)
- Peace
- Heaven is a Fine Place
- Ata
- Complaint
- To My Mother
- Oh! My Brother
- The Homeless Boy
- The Lone Horse
- The Perfect Understander
- The Woods Decay
- On Parting
- To the Night Insects
- The Blind Man from the North
- A Second Birthday
- In God's Tired Face
- The Executioner's Dream
- Had I Known
- Re-incarnation
- Ancestral Faces
- ‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
- My Sea Adventure
- The Passing of The King
- Patriotism
- African Heaven
- The Ghosts
- The Herdsman from Wa
- Pa Grant Due
- The Mosquito and the Young Ghanaian
- Unity in Diversity
- The Journey to Independence
- Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
- The Dawn of the New Era
- The Meaning of Independence
- National Anthem
- The Contributors
- Index
The Passing of The King
from THE TOWN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- No Wings
- Preface to Second Edition
- Foreword to Second Edition
- Introduction to Second Edition
- A Note of History
- Should I Ever…
- THE COUNTRYSIDE
- AKAN
- EWE
- GA-ADANGME
- DAGOMBA
- HAUSA
- THE TOWN
- Tumble-Down Woods
- Tough Guy in Town
- In the Streets of Accra
- Snuff and the Ashes
- Radio Dance Hour
- This is Experience Speaking
- Palm Leaves of Childhood
- Hot Day
- The Literary Society
- It's Ritual Murder
- The Wrong Packing Case
- Lines on Korle Bu
- Pay Day
- The Walk of Life (Agbezoli)
- Peace
- Heaven is a Fine Place
- Ata
- Complaint
- To My Mother
- Oh! My Brother
- The Homeless Boy
- The Lone Horse
- The Perfect Understander
- The Woods Decay
- On Parting
- To the Night Insects
- The Blind Man from the North
- A Second Birthday
- In God's Tired Face
- The Executioner's Dream
- Had I Known
- Re-incarnation
- Ancestral Faces
- ‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
- My Sea Adventure
- The Passing of The King
- Patriotism
- African Heaven
- The Ghosts
- The Herdsman from Wa
- Pa Grant Due
- The Mosquito and the Young Ghanaian
- Unity in Diversity
- The Journey to Independence
- Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
- The Dawn of the New Era
- The Meaning of Independence
- National Anthem
- The Contributors
- Index
Summary
All day, the drums say
‘Ten years ago today,
The king turned, never to return.’
And while the air is all alive with song,
His Royal Palms wave greenish-golden leaves
Fair with the tenderness of long drawn hair.
Here, in the palace court,
Tall sad ladies sway in grief
To drummed notes of mourning and of love.
We mourn him most, who knew him best,
And loved him as the one link
Between the past and us…
A rare soul aglow with ancient pride,
The pride of a golden age, unremembered.
With fitting grace, he bowed his way from life,
Bidding us to build upon the past,
With pride of worth that only makers know.
But we have failed the King, and lost the past,
And seem now, a race
Sick with loss of memory.
O gentle dancers, dance his spirits back
Who taught us in our childhood to believe
If only we could feel across the age,
A race that made a kingdom might awake.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Voices of GhanaLiterary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System 1955–57, pp. 228Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018