Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/165

 The roar of mighty winds with wintering streams

That foam about the limits of the land

And mix their swiftness with the flying seas.

Now, when the man had turned his face about

To take his rest, behold the gem-like eyes

Of ambushed wild things stared from bole and brake

With dumb amaze and faint-recurring glance,

And fear anon that drove them down the brush;

While from his den the dingo, like a scout

In sheltered ways, crept out and cowered near

To sniff the tokens of the stranger's feast

And marvel at the shadows of the flame.

Thereafter grew the wind; and chafing depths

In distant waters sent a troubled cry

Across the slumb'rous forest; and the chill

Of coming rain was on the sleeper's brow,

When, flat as reptiles hutted in the scrub,

A deadly crescent crawled to where he lay—

A band of fierce, fantastic savages

That, starting naked round the faded fire,

With sudden spears and swift terrific yells,

Came bounding wildly at the white man's head,

And faced him, staring like a dream of Hell!

Here let me pass! I would not stay to tell

Of hopeless struggles under crushing blows;

Of how the surging fiends, with thickening strokes,

Howled round the stranger till they drained his strength;

How Love and Life stood face to face with Hate

And Death; and then how Death was left alone

With Night and Silence in the sobbing rains.

So, after many moons, the searchers found

The body mouldering in the mouldering dell

Amidst the fungi and the bleaching leaves,

And buried it, and raised a stony mound

Which took the mosses. Then the place became

The haunt of fearful legends and the lair

Of bats and adders.