Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/364

THE CARIB SEA And from the rift a stream outflowed,

The fountain of that cloven grot,—

La Source! Along the downward road

It speeded, pitying the lot

Of dwellers in each hot-roofed spot

Which fiery noonday held in rule,—

Yet at the start neglected not

To broaden into one deep pool

Beneath those trees its staunchless waters cool.

Near the green edge of this recess

We made our halt, and marvelled, more

Than at its sudden loveliness,

To find reborn that life of yore

When ocean to Nausicaa bore

The wanderer from Calypso strayed,—

For here swart dames, and beldames hoar,

With many a round-limbed supple maid,

Plashed in the pool and eyed us unafraid.

The simple, shameless washers there,

Dusk children of the Haitian sun,

Bent to the work their bodies, bare

And brown, nor thought our gaze to shun,—

Save that an elfish withered one,

Scolding the white-toothed girls, set free

Her tongue, and bade them now have done

With saucy pranks, nor wanton be

Before us stranger folk from over sea.

But on the sward one rose full length

From her sole covering, and stood

Defiant in the beauteous strength

Of nature unabashed: a nude

And wilding slip of womanhood.

Now for the master-hand, that shaped

The Indian Hunter in his wood, 334