my sarais marais is so ver van my hart,
my sarais marais is so ver van my hart, maar ek hoopom haar te sein;
 syhet in die wyk van die mooi rivier gewoon, voor dat die oorlog begin chorus o neem my terug na die ou transvaal, daar waar mysarais woon;
 daar onder die mielies by die groen doring boom, daar waar my sarai woon (rpt last 2 lines) o altyd was sy bang dat die kakies ys sou vang, enver oor die see weg stuur;
 toe vlug ak die kantvan die upington, se sant onder die groot rivier.
 -------------------------- my sarais marais is so far, far, away, I'm longing to see her again;
 she lives on a farm by the mooi river banks, before I left on this campaign.
 chorus oh, take me back to the old transvaal, that's where I'm longing to be;
 I wonder if I'll ever see that grre thorny tree, there where she's waiting for me.
 (rpt last 2 lines) I feared that the soldiers might get hold of me, they'd have sent me away o' er the sea;
 I fled overland to the orange river sand, in upington I will be free.
 at last there will be peace, and I'll start for home, to the transvaal i've always adored;
 my sarais marais will be waiting there for me, her kiss will be my reward.
 --------------------------------- this is a compilation version from the singing of frank povah, now of tenterfield, nsw, who learned it when young from the singing of maude louise sellin, his grandmother, who learned it from returning boer war vets in w.
a.
, when she was young.
 I recorded also kit denton, of wentworth falls, nsw, singing this song which he learned from south african paratroopers in wwii.
 I have found no serving diggers who sing this song;
 its currency in the army probably ended with the boer war, but it was sung in imperial armies' up to wwii, and is still sung in the south african army I got the afrikaan version from the war museum of the boer republics.