Down the years, Dr Denis Worrall has referred to Nelson Mandela and his contribution to our society on numerous occasions. Dr Worrall met Mandela in the company of Zack de Beer and Wynand Malan at his home in Soweto within 10 days of his release from prison and subsequently. But rather than write of Nelson Mandela’s contribution to our politics and humanity he has contributed what we regard as a beautiful tribute to Madiba and his legacy. We publish it on behalf of Omega Investment Research (Pty) Ltd and African Business Advisors (Pty) Ltd, our permanent staff, international representatives, friends, supporters and clients in 26 countries. – Stacey Farao, Managing Editor

Stop all clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled dru
Bring out the coffin, and, let the mourners come
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message - He is dead!
He disappeared on a warm Highveld evening
The streams were running free, Oliver Tambo was crowded
And public statues were still glazed with the warmth of a summer's day
The mercury had sunk in the mouth of a dying day

Far from his illness
The deer ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the man was kept from his good deeds

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours; the provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers

One man, a prominent man in the land, some time ago described Madiba as better in the morning
Than when he saw him the night before
Clearly a misunderstanding – as Madiba had heeded the poet who famously wrote
“Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at the end of day”
Our Madiba, did not go gentle into that good night
But raged, raged against the light

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections;
To find his happiness in another kind of world
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The deeds and words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of tomorrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom;
Many thousands will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
O from far and wide all agree
The day of his death was a sad and mournful day.

With acknowledgements to W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas