Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/50

Three skulls of kings, late mighty mortal foes,
The monarch tramples; a white ivory trump
Of elephant tusk one blows, while others clang
Dissonant gongs—but ah! delicious groves
Of fanlike palm, with waxen clusters fair,
Cassia, myrrh, aloe, or ananas!
Sweet amber-weeping mists of sensitive leaf,
Wooing young sunlight to a delicate
Dream in your soft warm zephyr-haunted hearts,
Empetall'd all with rosy peach blossom!
Alas! your mellow meeklived innocence
Blazes—A fierce intolerable gold
Breaks from breastplates of yelling murderers,
Dragging men, women, children, cowering slaves,
From hence, and shelter of dank cane jungles,
Or wounding chaos of floral parasite;
Convolved wing'd serpents hung in gorgeous gloom
Of tower-pillar'd forest high and hoar.
Rather they brave grim Terrors of the wild,
Stealthily prowling in moonlighted glades,
Where bubble sweet live waters musical;
Huge grisly rivals crushing the stunn'd prey;