Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/322

That dimly lighted up the mystic choice
Of this their alien King,—how once a voice
Was heard by their own monarch calling clear,
And leading onward, where as on a bier
A dead child lay upon a woman's knees;
whom when the old King saw, like one who sees
Far through the mist of common life, he spoke
And touched him with the Pearl, and he awoke,
And from that day the people owned his right
To wear the Pearl and rule them, when the light
Had left their old King's eyes. But now, they said,
The men who owned that right were too long dead;
And they were young and strong and held their spears
In idle resting through this white King's fears.
Who still would live to rule them till they changed
Their men to puling women, and estranged
To Austral hands the spear and coila grew.

And so they rose against him, and they slew
The white-haired men who raised their hands to warn.