Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/115

The head of one fallen from its wooden pillow;
And piteous between them a small form
Of a starved child, nestled by sire and mother.
The dead, and living wounded, and the babes,
Are flung by those contemptuous conquerors
To feed loathsome hyenas, that assemble
Through lurid smoke of sunset, gaunt and grey;
With obscene screaming vultures, heavily
Wheeling, or swooping; rending the live prey.
One infant darling, weeping, wilder'd, still
Solicits the cold breast of a dead mother!

⁠I have seen Lualaba's mighty rolling water
Red with the blood of a blithe innocent people,
Who, unforeboding slant-eyed treachery,
Chaffer'd, and bought and sold, as was their wont,
In a populous fair by the worn river-marge.
And there was melody of mandolin,
And dulcet flute; with dancing, and warm love
Of gay young lovers, under broad brown eaves,
Sheltering from a hot ascending day:
Where clear young laughter blent deliciously