Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/679

CANTO IV.] Swam round the rock, to where a shallow cleft

Hid the canoe that Neuha there had left

Drifting along the tide, without an oar,

That eve the strangers chased them from the shore;

But when these vanished, she pursued her prow,

Regained, and urged to where they found it now:

Nor ever did more love and joy embark,

Than now were wafted in that slender ark.

XV.

Again their own shore rises on the view,

No more polluted with a hostile hue;

No sullen ship lay bristling o'er the foam,

A floating dungeon:—all was Hope and Home!

A thousand Proas darted o'er the bay,

With sounding shells, and heralded their way;

The chiefs came down, around the people poured,

And welcomed Torquil as a son restored;

The women thronged, embracing and embraced

By Neuha, asking where they had been chased,

And how escaped? The tale was told; and then

One acclamation rent the sky again;

And from that hour a new tradition gave

Their sanctuary the name of "Neuha's Cave."

A hundred fires, far flickering from the height,

Blazed o'er the general revel of the night,

The feast in honour of the guest, returned

To Peace and Pleasure, perilously earned;

A night succeeded by such happy days

As only the yet infant world displays.

J. 10th

1823.

END OF VOL. V.