Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/363

LA SOURCE To end the drama, Fate grew fain,

Uprose a rebel tide, and flowed

Close to the threshold where he strode.

A craven at the last," they say:

Not so,—Christophe his leave will take

The long unwonted Roman way.

And I go down with the setting sun!"

A pistol-shot,—no sign of fear,—

So died Christophe without a peer.

LA SOURCE

(PORT-AU-PRINCE)

the mountain roadside near,

Wherefrom the cliff that rose behind

Kept back, through all the tropic year,

The sundrouth and the whirling wind;

These here could never entrance find;

Perpetual summer balm it knew;

And skyward, thick-set boughs entwined

Their coil, where birds made sweet ado,

And heaven through glossy leaves was deepest blue.

Twin relics of some forest grim,

The last of their primeval race

Left scatheless, knit them limb with limb

Above the reaches of that place;

Time's hand against their high embrace

For seeming centuries had striven,

But yet they grappled face to face,

Still from their olden guard undriven

Though at their feet the cliff itself was riven.

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