200
SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS.
Nathan's voice was never raised but Bill's support was uttered too;
And whenever Beans was floored by Sculpin's cruel marlinspike,
Down beside him went poor Lambert, for his hand was clenched to strike.
So they passed two years in cruising, till one breathless burning day
The old "Patience Parr" in Sunda Straits[1] with flapping canvas lay.
On her starboard side Sumatra's woods were dark beneath the glare,
And on her port stretched Java, slumbering in the yellow air,—
Slumbering as the jaguar slumbers, as the tropic ocean sleeps.
Smooth and smiling on its surface with a devil in its deeps.
So swooned Java's moveless forest, but the jungle round its root
- ↑ The straits of Sunda, seven miles wide at the southern extremity, lie between Sumatra and Java.
