Page:Where the Dead Men Lie.djvu/108

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

SKEETA

Our Skeeta was married! our Skeeta! the tomboy and pet of the place—
No more as a maiden we’d greet her; no more would her pert little face
Light up the chill gloom of the parlour; no more would her deft little hands
Serve drinks to the travel-stained caller on his way to more southerly lands:
No more would she chaff the rough drovers and send them away with a smile;
No more would she madden her lovers demurely, with womanish guile—
The ‘prince’ from the great Never Never, with light touch of lips and of hand
Had come, and enslaved her for ever—a potentate bearded and tanned
From the land where the white mirage dances its dance of death over the plains,
With the glow of the sun in his glances, the lust of the West in his veins;