Page:Ballads, Stevenson, 1890.djvu/66

 Over against him at once, in the spotted shade of the trees,

Owlish and blinking creatures scrambled to hands and knees;

On the grades of the sacred terrace, the driveller woke to fear,

And the hand of the ham-drooped warrior brandished a wavering spear.

And Rua folded his arms, and scorn discovered his teeth;

Above the war-crowd gibbered, and Rua stood smiling beneath.

Thick, like leaves in the autumn, faint, like April sleet,

Missiles from tremulous hands quivered around his feet;

And Taheia leaped from her place; and the priest, the ruby-eyed,

Ran to the front of the terrace, and brandished his arms, and cried:

"Hold, O fools, he brings tidings!" and "Hold, 't is the love of my heart!"

Till lo! in front of the terrace, Rua pierced with a dart.

Taheia cherished his head, and the aged priest stood by,

And gazed with eyes of ruby at Rua's darkening eye.

"Taheia, here is the end, I die a death for a man.

I have given the life of my soul to save an unsavable clan.

See them, the drooping of hams! behold me the blinking crew:

Fifty spears they cast, and one of fifty true!

And you, O priest, the foreteller, foretell for yourself if you can,

Foretell the hour of the day when the Vais shall burst on your clan!

By the head of the tapu cleft, with death and fire in their hand,

Thick and silent like ants, the warriors swarm in the land."

And they tell that when next the sun had climbed to the noonday skies,

It shone on the smoke of feasting in the country of the Vais.

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