Andries Gerhardus Visser (1879–1929)

Abstract This chapter contains newly crafted translations and International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions of thirty-three poems by Andries Gerhardus Visser. The first six poems are from the song cycle Noah’s Ark, including “The Elephant,” “The Rhinoceros,” “The Hump-Backed Camel,” “The Hippopotamus,” “The Giraffe,” and “And-So-Forth.” The chapter concludes with twenty-seven stand-alone poems, which include: “The Dark Stream,” “The Little Bells of Paarl,” “The Rose,” “The Roses of Remembrance,” “The Black Oxen,” “The Gardener,” “The Road Is My Dwelling,” “A Thousand-and-One,” “The Birth of Spring,” “Little Ground Fellow, My Shadow,” “Puppy Love,” “Little Ray of Sunshine,” “Country, Nation, and Language,” “Song of the Miracle Tree,” “Man and Wife,” “With a Basket of Roses,” “Afternoon Nap,” “Now or Never,” “Because Death,” “The Distant Princess,” “A Love Letter,” “(Pretty) Susie,” “Dedication,” “From the Forlorn Marsh,” “A Light Shines Ahead on the Wagon Trail,” “Question and Answer,” and “If I Were a Singer.” Musical settings include compositions by S. le Roux Marais, P. J. Lemmer, P. J. de Villiers, Gideon Fagan, Johannes Joubert, Daniel Clement, Lourens Faul, Sydney Richfield, Arthur Ellis, Gerrit Bon Sr., M. C. Roode, Horace Barton, John Pescod, and women composers including Rosa Nepgen, Doris Beyers, Eva Noel Harvey, and Maria van der Mark, among others. Illuminating footnotes enhance the reader’s comprehension of the unique biodiversity of the Southern African landscape and multicultural distinctiveness of its people. Lyric diction recommendations are provided for best practices for singing in Afrikaans. Topics include love, dreams, nostalgia, nature, death, and the Great Trek.