Page:Ballads, Stevenson, 1890.djvu/35

 Late, late, I behold you, yet I behold you at last,

And glory, beholding! For now are the days of my agony past,

The lust that famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire,

And they that encompassed my son shrivel alive in the fire.

Tenfold precious the vengeance that comes after lingering years!

Ye quenched the voice of my singer?—hark, in your dying ears,

The song of the conflagration! Ye left me a widow alone?

—Behold, the whole of your race consumes, sinew and bone

And torturing flesh together: man, mother, and maid

Heaped in a common shambles; and already, borne by the trade,

The smoke of your dissolution darkens the stars of night."

Thus she spoke, and her stature grew in the people's sight.

III. RAHÉRO.

Rahéro was there in the hall asleep: beside him his wife,

Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in life;

And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse;

And a boy, a climber of trees: all the hopes of his house.

Unwary, with open hands, he slept in the midst of his folk,

And dreamed that he heard a voice crying without, and awoke,

Leaping blindly afoot like one from a dream that he fears.

A hellish glow and clouds were about him;—it roared in his ears 23