Page:Stevenson - Songs of Travel (1896).djvu/88

Rh Captured and scratched the rooting hand.

I saw him crouch, I felt him bite;

And straight my eyes were touched with sight.

I saw the wood for what it was:

The lost and the victorious cause,

The deadly battle pitched in line,

Saw silent weapons cross and shine:

Silent defeat, silent assault,

A battle and a burial vault.

Thick round me in the teeming mud

Brier and fern strove to the blood:

The hooked liana in his gin

Noosed his reluctant neighbours in:

There the green murderer throve and spread,

Upon his smothering victims fed,

And wantoned on his climbing coil.

Contending roots fought for the soil

Like frightened demons: with despair 72