Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/106

I enter equatorial lakes, unknown
To any European eyes before:
Ngami, Bemba, Moero, Nyassa;
Slumbering in grand enfolding arms
Of old volcanic mountain, tempest-crown'd!
Profound and lonely children of the waters,
Whom gorgeous-vestured giant forms o'erfrown,
Bastion, tower, inviolate precipice,
Burying them from all-beholding Sun
In sullen shadow, many hours a year.
Ngami! earliest lake mine eyes beheld;
On whose fair shores of old exultantly
I stood, with my dear little ones and her!
This inland sea, this noble Tanganika,
Where Burton came with Speke, whom England mourns,
Hath all his guardian mountains foliaged
From wave to heaven; magnificently robed
In rich luxuriant foliage of Mvulé,
And other alien blossoming tall trees,
Bauhinia, tamarind, teak, and sycomore,
Enfolding purple torrent-cloven ravines.