Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/205

CAPTAIN FRANCISCA The filibusters' isle,

Tortuga's port.

Swift was the craft that bore

Francisca from her shore;

Red-handed were its crew

And grim their sport.

Unbraided fell her hair,

A tropic cloud;

Seven days, with sob and prayer,

She mourned the dead;

Like rain her tears fell;

But Du Plessis right well

By saint and relic vowed

As on they sped.

Ere past the Mer du Nord

She smiled apace;

Her dark eyes evermore

Sought his alone.

Hot wooed the Chevalier;

His outlaw-priest was near:

Forsworn were home and race,

She was his own.

185