Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/75
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63
To giant strength in unshorn manhood grown,
He haunts the wilderness, he dwells alone.
A tigress with her whelps to seize him sprung,
He tears the mother, and he tames the young
In the drear cavern of their native rock;
Thither wild slaves and fell banditti flock;
He heads their hordes; they burst, like torrid rains,
In death and devastation o'er the plains;
Stronger and holder grows his ruffian band,
Prouder his heart, more terrible his hand.
He spreads his banner; crowding from afar,
Innumerable armies rush to war;
Resistless as the pillar'd whirlwinds fly
O'er Lybian sands, revolving to the sky,
In fire and wrath through every realm they run,
Where the noon-shadow shrinks beneath the sun;
Till at the Conqueror's feet from sea to sea,
A hundred nations bow the servile knee,
And throned in nature's unreveal'd domains,
The Jenghis Khan of Africa he reigns.
He haunts the wilderness, he dwells alone.
A tigress with her whelps to seize him sprung,
He tears the mother, and he tames the young
In the drear cavern of their native rock;
Thither wild slaves and fell banditti flock;
He heads their hordes; they burst, like torrid rains,
In death and devastation o'er the plains;
Stronger and holder grows his ruffian band,
Prouder his heart, more terrible his hand.
He spreads his banner; crowding from afar,
Innumerable armies rush to war;
Resistless as the pillar'd whirlwinds fly
O'er Lybian sands, revolving to the sky,
In fire and wrath through every realm they run,
Where the noon-shadow shrinks beneath the sun;
Till at the Conqueror's feet from sea to sea,
A hundred nations bow the servile knee,
And throned in nature's unreveal'd domains,
The Jenghis Khan of Africa he reigns.