Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/130

126 Knew the rustling anaconda and the tiger's padded foot. There in Nature's rankest garden, Nature's worst alone is rife, And a glorious land is wild-beast ruled for want of human life. Scarce a harmless thing moved on it, not a living soul was near From the frowning rocks of Java Head right northward to Anjier. Crestless swells, like wind-raised canvas, made the whaler rise and dip, Else she lay upon the water like a paralytic ship; And beneath a topsail awning lay the lazy, languid crew, Drinking in the precious coolness of the shadow,—all save two: Two poor Ishmaels,—they were absent. Heaven help them!—roughly tied 'Neath the blistering cruel sun-glare in the fore-chains, side by side.