Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/110

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106
SONGS FROM THE SOUTHERN SEAS.

It came into that manly bushman's life,
And circled him round with the arms of his wife.
God bless that bright memory! Even to me,
A rough, lonely man, did she seem to be,
While living, an angel of God's pure love,
And now I could pray to her face above.
And David he loved her as only a man
With a heart as large as was his heart can.
I wondered how they could have lived apart,
For he was her idol, and she his heart.

Friend, there isn't much more of the tale to tell:
I was talking of angels awhile since. Well,
Now I'll change to a devil,—ay, to a devil!
You needn't start: if a spirit of evil
Ever came to this world its hate to slake
On mankind, it came as a Dukite Snake.

Like? Like the pictures you've seen of Sin,
A long red snake,—as if what was within
Was fire that gleamed through his glistening skin.