Page:Where the Dead Men Lie.djvu/71

Rh The skies were aflame at her coming With a marvellous message of ill; And fear-stricken pinions were drumming The hot, heavy air, whence the humming Of insects rose, sudden and shrill, As they fled from that hell-begirt hill.

Then the smoke-serpent writhed in her tresses: The flame kissed her hard on the lips: She smiled at their ardent caresses As the wanton who smiles, but represses A lover's hot haste, and so slips From the arm that would girdle her hips.

Such the time of her coming and fashion: How long ere her day shall be sped, And she goes to rekindle past passion With languorous glances that flash on The long-straightened limbs of the dead, Where they lie in a winter-wet bed?

Where the wide waves of evergreen carry The song sad and soft of the surge To feathered battalions that harry The wizen-armed bloodwoods that tarry For ever, chained down on the verge Of a river that mutters a dirge.