In speaking of Negro poetry, we shall do so under three different heads; viz., the _Epic_, _Idyllic_, _Religious_, or miscellaneous. _The epic poetry_ of Africa, so far as known, is certainly worthy of careful study. The child must babble before it can talk, and all barbarians have a sense of the sublime in speech. Mr. Taine, in his "History of English Literature," speaking of early Saxon poetry, says,-- "One poem nearly whole, and two or three fragments, are all that remain of this lay-poetry of England. The rest of the pagan current, German and barbarian, was arrested or overwhelmed, first by the influx of the Christian religion, then by the conquest of the Norman-French. But what remains more than suffices to show the strange and powerful poetic genius of the race, and to exhibit beforehand the flower in the bud. "If there has ever been anywhere a deep and serious poetic sentiment, it is here. They do not speak: they sing, or rather they shout. Each little verse is an acclamation, which breaks forth like a growl; their strong breasts heave with a groan of anger or enthusiasm, and a vehement or indistinct phrase or expression rises suddenly, almost in spite of them, to their lips. There is no art, no natural talent, for describing, singly and in order, the different parts of an object or an event. The fifty rays of light which every phenomenon emits in succession to a regular and well-directed intellect, come to them at once in a glowing and confused mass, disabling them by their force and convergence. Listen to their genuine war-chants, unchecked and violent, as became their terrible voices! To this day, at this distance of time, separated as they are by manners, speech, ten centuries, we seem to hear them still."[96] This glowing description of the poetry of the primitive and hardy Saxon gives the reader an excellent idea of the vigorous, earnest, and gorgeous effusions of the African. Panda was king of the Kaffirs. He was considered quite a great warrior. It took a great many _isi-bongas_ to describe his virtues. His chief _isi-bongas_ was "O-Elephant." This was chosen to describe his strength and greatness. Mr. Wood gives an account of the song in honor of Panda:--