Page:Ballads, Stevenson, 1890.djvu/49

 THE FEAST OF FAMINE: MARQUESAN MANNERS.

I. THE PRIEST'S VIGIL.

In all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit,

And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot.1

The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right

Now oiled their carven maces and scoured their daggers bright;

They gat them to the thicket, to the deepest of the shade,

And lay with sleepless eyes in the deadly ambuscade.

And oft in the starry even the song of morning rose,

What time the oven smoked in the country of their foes;

For oft to loving hearts, and waiting ears and sight,

The lads that went to forage returned not with the night.

Now first the children sickened, and then the women paled,

And the great arms of the warrior no more for war availed.

Hushed was the deep drum, discarded was the dance;

And those that met the priest now glanced at him askance.

The priest was a man of years, his eyes were ruby-red,2

He neither feared the dark nor the terrors of the dead, 37