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
Oh! My Brother
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
Oh! my brother, my brother dear
Your face before me cannot clear;
Though not even an image of you I have
Yet my mind is always on you,
For you left me with your favourite hymn:
Dzidz? wònye nam esi wodzim.
Your years were just eight, little brother,
Just beginning to know of life
For your boyish brain was just starting
To read your first tongue, and the A B C,
With the songs of praise I'll sing till I die:
Dzidz? hawo madzi vasede esi maku.
Brother, dear brother, my brother dear
A mother's love we did not know,
For she left when you were just young.
Had we had our mother even today I say
My ears would have a delight to hear you sing
Avi s? agb? le afisia kple fukpekpe füu
Hundreds of miles between us lay
And my letter to Pa … How's my brother?
Was written on the day you were gone.
Oh! death! why deprive me of my brother
Arid his most loved song of praise:
Ŋ?dzi ge?e le agbeme vase?e esi miaku
Natural did all seem after those six months
When I turned my face home bound,
But Oh! brother, my eyes were in tears
For I reached the station where we last met
And found you not, but somebody
Who could not give me your songs of praise.
Then at home—where is brother Kwashie?
Nobody talked but I heard an answer,
Which sent me nothing but heart-break,
And to your home was I directed—
Your father's home no more your own—
But your songs of praise I heard you sing:
Avidzi ko mian? ne X?la meli o.
Where is my brother? for his place is so quiet.
Oh brother! brother! are you alone there?
Oh no, with grand-ma and mother.
But grand-ma and mother are dead.
Ah! I remember, I remember, brother too is dead.
Only his songs of praise can't die with him:
Mloeake la ava dzaa ale wofe asi.
My last gift to you, a forget-me-not tree
Which at your head did stand
And your remains in its shade do rest
And away again, away from you.
Good-bye, good-bye, dear brother, good-bye.
But with your priceless gift with me I go:
Dzi la dz?m tegbee ‘lab? nye nutila fa.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Voices of GhanaLiterary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System 1955–57, pp. 211 - 212Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018