Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/113
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William Gilmore Simms.
109
Isa. It is not so,
Or does my sense deceive! Look there: the wave
A perch beyond our barque. What dost thou see?
Leon. A marvellous shape, that with the billow curls,
In gambols of the deep, and yet is not
Its wonted burden; for beneath the waves
I mark a gracious form, though nothing clear
Of visage I discern. Again it speaks.
Or does my sense deceive! Look there: the wave
A perch beyond our barque. What dost thou see?
Leon. A marvellous shape, that with the billow curls,
In gambols of the deep, and yet is not
Its wonted burden; for beneath the waves
I mark a gracious form, though nothing clear
Of visage I discern. Again it speaks.
THE EDGE OF THE SWAMP.
'Tis a wild spot and hath a gloomy look;
The bird sings never merrily in the trees,
And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank growth
Spreads poisonously round, with pow'r to taint,
With blistering dews, the thoughtless hand that dares
To penetrate the covert. Cypresses
Crowd on the dank, wet earth; and, stretched at length,
The cayman—a fit dweller in such home—
Slumbers, half buried in the sedgy grass,
Beside the green ooze where he shelters him.
A whooping crane erects his skeleton form,
And shrieks in flight. Two summer ducks, aroused
To apprehension as they hear his cry,
Dash up from the lagoon with marvellous, haste,
Following his guidance. Meetly taught by these,
And startled at our rapid, near approach,
The steel-jawed monster, from his grassy bed,
Crawls slowly to his slimy, green abode,
Which straight receives him. You behold him now,
His ridgy back uprising as he speeds
In silence to the centre of the stream,
Whence his head peers alone. A butterfly,
That, travelling all the day, has counted climes
Only by flowers, to rest himself a while,
Lights on the monster's brow. The surly mute
Straightway goes down, so suddenly, that he,
The bird sings never merrily in the trees,
And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank growth
Spreads poisonously round, with pow'r to taint,
With blistering dews, the thoughtless hand that dares
To penetrate the covert. Cypresses
Crowd on the dank, wet earth; and, stretched at length,
The cayman—a fit dweller in such home—
Slumbers, half buried in the sedgy grass,
Beside the green ooze where he shelters him.
A whooping crane erects his skeleton form,
And shrieks in flight. Two summer ducks, aroused
To apprehension as they hear his cry,
Dash up from the lagoon with marvellous, haste,
Following his guidance. Meetly taught by these,
And startled at our rapid, near approach,
The steel-jawed monster, from his grassy bed,
Crawls slowly to his slimy, green abode,
Which straight receives him. You behold him now,
His ridgy back uprising as he speeds
In silence to the centre of the stream,
Whence his head peers alone. A butterfly,
That, travelling all the day, has counted climes
Only by flowers, to rest himself a while,
Lights on the monster's brow. The surly mute
Straightway goes down, so suddenly, that he,
K