Page:Poems Forrest.djvu/20

Again we hear the sound of bells;
 This time their hurry makes them clash
Like knife on knife. There is a stain
Of red . . . We mount our barge again.

No palace windows are too high
 To keep our ship of fancy out;
The frightened doves wheel from the court,
 In the bazaar we hear a shout,
And, galloping by gardens green,
We see a swaying palankeen.
We leave the towered town again,
 We like it not in angry mood,
Where smoked the incense of the shrine,
 The cinnamons seem damped with blood.
Above the misty millet plain
We laugh into the clouds again . . .

To find the tossing sea once more,
 Below our flight see coral isles,
Lighthouses feeling with their rays
 Where stealthy, treacherous tide beguiles;
And hear the gannets o'er the race
Scream, pecking at a dead man's face.
We see black flags of pirate dhows,
 The rusting gold in Spanish ships,
A princess in a sea-girt tower,
 Holding a dead flower to her lips.
While, riven by the sharp rock's fangs,
Half-way, a silken ladder hangs.

And then above our own dear land
 In the grey east there glows a light,
Oh, hurry, hurry, magic barge,
 Or we shall not be home to-night!