Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/697

 Rh It came into that manly bushman's life,

And circled him round with the arms of his wife,

God bless that bright memory! Even to me,

A rough, lonely man, did she seem to be,

While living, an angel of God's pare love,

And now I could pray to her face above.

And David he loved her as only a man

With a heart as large as was his heart can.

I wondered how they could have lived apart,

For he was her idol, and she his heart.

Friend, there isn't much more of the tale to tell:

I was talking of angels awhile since. Well,

Now I'll change to a devil,—ay, to a devil!

You needn't start: if a spirit of evil

Ever came to this world its hate to slake

On mankind, it came as a Dukite Snake.

Like? Like the pictures you've seen of Sin,

A long red snake,—as if what was within

Was fire that gleamed through his glistening skin.

And his eyes!—if you could go down to hell

And come back to your fellows here and tell

What the fire was like, you could find no thing,

Here below on the earth, or up in the sky,

To compare it to but a Dukite' s eye!

Now, mark you, these Dukites don't go alone:

There's another near when you see but one;

And beware you of killing that one you see

Without finding the other; for you may be

More than twenty miles from the spot that night,

When camped, but you're tracked by the lone Dukite,

That will follow your trail like Death or Fate,

And kill you as sure as you killed its mate!

Well, poor Dave Sloane had his young wife here

Three months,—'twas just this time of the year.