Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/58

54 With aim unerring and with deathful might, And split the awful centre of their sight,— The upraised Pearl! A moment there it shone Before the spear-point,—then forever gone !

The spell that long the ruined huts did shroud Was rent and scattered, as a hanging cloud In moveless air is torn and blown away By sudden gust uprising; and one day When evening's lengthened shadows came to hush The children's voices, and the awful bush Was lapt in sombre stillness, and on high Above the arches stretched the frescoed sky,— When all the scene such chilling aspect wore As marked one other night long years before, When through the reaching trees the moonlight shone Upon a prostrate form, and o'er it one With kingly gesture. Now the light is shed No more on youthful brow and daring head,