Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/66

And venom'd snake secreted in the gloom;
Dismal dead trees enshrouded with the pale
Dense life of lichen that hath stifled them;
Where lurks foul carrion, and agarics
Fouler than carrion infect the air,
Mid noisome immemorial forest mould.
We crush'd through deadlier thickets of rank growth,
Whose blades colossal, notch'd with tearing teeth,
Rise in dense walls above the ox-rider:
These wound, entangle: while his lower limbs
Are chill'd by shadowy dews that ne'er exhale
From labyrinths of marshlight-haunted fen,
Dismal in dull death-gendering decay,
His head and shoulders burn with torrid fire,
Unshelter'd from a humid sultry sky.
My body and my raiment rent with thorns,
These lacerated feet refuse to bear
Me any further; and I linger long,
A prisoner, waiting for my wounds to heal.
I have waded waist-deep in stagnating water
Of inundated equatorial plains,