Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/100

Among dark faces of adoring crowds,
Moonsilver'd, lit from lamps of gourd or melon,
Amid glad music and loud clapping hands;
Even as in Saïs, at the Feast of Lamps,
Far away in dim hollows of the past!

⁠Among rare visions of celestial glory,
And all responsive splendours upon Earth,
In such a scene as these, in such a river,
Behold! a maiden in her earliest prime
Bound to a stake, bare-limb'd upon a bank,
The ripple washing over her slim ankles,
And lovely swaying lilies kissing them.
She horror-frozen waits the horrid doom . .
. . A hideous head protrudes from forth the shoal:
There is a whirl of monstrous dragon-tail . .
. . Andromeda's red blood afflicts the river;
Whom no fair wingèd Perseus may save!

⁠I travell'd over many lakes and rivers,
In floating trees men hollow'd with an adze
For a canoe, my rowers with wild song