| |
| HE launch’d his boat where the dark waves flow, | |
| Through the desert that never was white with snow | |
| When the wind was still, and the sun shone bright, | |
| And the stream glow’d red with the morning light. | |
| |
| He had sat in the cool of the palm’s broad shade | 5 |
| And drank of the fountain of Kafnah’s glade, | |
| When the herb was scorch’d by the sun’s hot ray, | |
| And the camel failed on his thirsty way. | |
| |
| And the dark maids of Sego their mats had spread, | |
| And sung all night by the stranger’s bed; | 10 |
| And his sleep was sweet on that desert sand, | |
| For his visions were far in his own loved land. | |
| |
| He was weary and faint in a stranger clime, | |
| But his soul was at home as in youth’s sweet time, | |
| And he lay in the shade, by his cot’s clear pool, | 15 |
| And the breeze which came by was refreshing and cool. | |
| |
| And the look of his mother was gentle and sweet, | |
| And he heard the loved steps of his sister’s light feet, | |
| And their voices were soft and expressive and low, | |
| Like the distant rain, or the brook’s calm flow. | 20 |
| |
| And this was the song which the dark maids sung, | |
| In the beautiful strains of their own wild tongue; | |
| “The stranger came far, and sat under our tree, | |
| We will bring him sweet food, for no sister has he.” | |
| |
| And the stranger went forth when the night-breeze had died, | 25 |
| And launch’d his light bark on the Joliba’s tide; | |
| And he waved his white kerchief to those dark maids, | |
| As he silently enter’d the palmy shades. | |
| |
| And the maidens of Sego were sad and lone, | |
| And sung their rude song, like the death spirit’s moan: | 30 |
| “The stranger has gone where the simoom will burn, | |
| Alas! for the white man will never return!” | |
| |
