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(From The Treasure of the Tropic Seas)
WHERE down the purple slope that slants | |
| Across the hills, the sun-rays glance | |
| With hot stare through the cocoa-trees, | |
| And wine-palms tent beside the seas, | |
| To Port-of-Spain, long leagues away, | 5 |
| Just as the mellow mist of day | |
| Was glowing in the east, there came | |
| A wayworn man, whose feeble frame | |
| And weary step and silent tears | |
| Meant more of sorrow than of years. | 10 |
| But when he saw the seaport town, | |
| With houses bamboo-thatched and brown, | |
| And marked each winding lane and street, | |
| Cool-shaded from the tropic heat, | |
| He bent him prone upon the ground | 15 |
| For this,—that he at last had found | |
| What brought a worn heart hope of rest. * * * * * | |
| The night was hot, and faint, and still,— | |
| The moon, above the wooded hill, | |
| A line of silver lances pressed | 20 |
| Across the sea-waves to the west. | |
| The bell-bird, with metallic throat, | |
| Sounded a dull and doleful note, | |
| And in the distant depths of wood | |
| The bittern broke the solitude. | 25 |
| But, save the sound of sea and bird, | |
| Scarce anything the silence stirred. | |
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