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