| |
| OUR task is done! on Gunga’s breast | |
| The sun is sinking down to rest; | |
| And, moored beneath the tamarind bough, | |
| Our bark has found its harbour now. | |
| With furlèd sail and painted side, | 5 |
| Behold the tiny frigate ride: | |
| Upon her deck, ’mid charcoal gleams, | |
| The Moslem’s savoury supper steams, | |
| While all apart, beneath the wood, | |
| The Hindoo cooks his simpler food. | 10 |
| |
| Come walk with me the jungle through: | |
| If yonder hunter told us true, | |
| Far off, in desert dank and rude, | |
| The tiger holds its solitude; | |
| Nor (taught by recent harm to shun | 15 |
| The thunders of the English gun) | |
| A dreadful guest but rarely seen, | |
| Returns to scare the village green. | |
| Come boldly on! no venomed snake | |
| Can shelter in so cool a brake. | 20 |
| Child of the Sun! he loves to lie | |
| ’Midst Nature’s embers, parched and dry, | |
| Where o’er some tower in ruin laid, | |
| The peepul spreads its haunted shade; | |
| Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe | 25 |
| Fit warder in the gate of Death. | |
| Come on!—yet pause! Behold us now | |
| Beneath the bamboo’s archèd bough, | |
| Where, gemming oft that sacred gloom, | |
| Glows the geranium’s scarlet bloom, 1 | 30 |
| And winds our path through many a bower | |
| Of fragrant tree and giant flower; | |
| The ceiba’s crimson pomp displayed | |
| O’er the broad plantain’s humbler shade | |
| And dusk anana’s prickly glade; | 35 |
| While o’er the brake, so wild and fair, | |
| The betel waves his crest in air. | |
| With pendent train and rushing wings | |
| Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs; | |
| And he, the bird of hundred dyes, 2 | 40 |
| Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize. | |
| |
| So rich a shade, so green a sod | |
| Our English fairies never trod! | |
| Yet who in Indian bowers has stood | |
| But thought on England’s “good green wood!” | 45 |
| And blessed, beneath the palmy shade, | |
| Her hazel and her hawthorn glade, | |
| And breathed a prayer (how oft in vain!) | |
| To gaze upon her oaks again? | |
| A truce to thought,—the jackal’s cry | 50 |
| Resounds like Sylvan revelry; | |
| And through the trees yon failing ray | |
| Will scantly serve to guide our way. | |
| Yet mark! as fade the upper skies, | |
| Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes. | 55 |
| Before, beside us, and above, | |
| The fire-fly lights his lamp of love, | |
| Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring, | |
| The darkness of the copse exploring, | |
| While to this cooler air confest, | 60 |
| The broad Dhatura bares her breast, | |
| Of fragrant scent, and virgin white, | |
| A pearl around the locks of night! | |
| Still, as we pass, in softened hum | |
| Along the breezy alleys come | 65 |
| The village song, the horn, the drum. | |
| Still, as we pass, from bush and briar, | |
| The shrill Cigala strikes his lyre; | |
| And, what is she whose liquid strain | |
| Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane? | 70 |
| I know that soul-entrancing swell, | |
| It is—it must be—Philomel! | |
| Enough, enough! the rustling trees | |
| Announce a shower upon the breeze; | |
| The flashes of the summer sky | 75 |
| Assume a deeper, ruddier dye; | |
| Yon lamp that trembles on the stream, | |
| From forth our cabin sheds its beam; | |
| And we must early sleep, to find | |
| Betimes the morning’s healthy wind. | 80 |
| But, oh! with thankful hearts confess | |
| E’en here there may be happiness; | |
| And He, the bounteous Sire, has given | |
| His peace on earth,—His hope of heaven! | |
