Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/299

The bush is whispering in her pent-up glee,
As myriad roots bestir them to be free,
And drink the soaking moisture; while bright heaven
Shows clear, as inland are the spent clouds driven,
And oh that arch, that sky's intensate hue
That deep, God-painted, unimagined blue
Through which the golden sun now smiling sails,
And sends his love to fructify the vales
That late he seemed to curse! Earth throbs and heaves
With pregnant prescience of life and leaves;
The shadows darken 'neath the tall trees' screen.
While round their stems the rank and velvet green
Of undergrowth is deeper still; and there,
Within the double shade and steaming air.
The scarlet palm has fixed its noxious root.
And hangs the glorious poison of its fruit;
And there, 'mid shaded green and shaded light.
The steel-blue silent birds take rapid flight
From earth to tree and tree to earth; and there
The crimson-plumaged parrot cleaves the air