Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/113

I rode to his hut just by chance that night,
And there on the threshold the clear moonlight
Showed the two snakes dead. I pushed in the door
With an awful feeling of coming woe:
The dead were stretched on the moonlit floor,
The man held the hand of his wife,—his pride,
His poor life's treasure,—and crouched by her side.
God! I sank with the weight of the blow.
I touched and called him: he heeded me not,
So I dug her grave in a quiet spot.
And lifted them both,—her boy on her breast,—
And laid them down in the shade to rest.
Then I tried to take my poor friend away,
But he cried so wofully, "Let me stay
Till she comes again!" that I had no heart
To try to persuade him then to part
From all that was left to him here,—her grave;
So I stayed by his side that night, and, save
One heart-cutting cry, he uttered no sound,—
O God! that wail—like the wail of a hound!