Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
II.
Now left alone, the youth contrived to free
His head, and strove his prison-place to see.
All round was sombre darkness; but it teemed
With great white ghastly eyes that strangely gleamed
With pink and silvery flashings here and there,
And seemed to float and throb in the dun air;
Then by degrees grew motionless, and fixed
On him one savage and concentred gaze;
And slowly he discerns, those eyes betwixt,
Features gigantic—furious—in amaze;
Wild brows upbranching broad, yet corrugate
With close-knit frowns ferocious; blubber lips
Stretched wide as rage and mockery can strain
Mouths—monstrous as the Shark's when 'mid the ship's
Exultant crew he gnashes in dumb pain—
That grin grotesque, intense and horrible hate,
And thrust out sidelong tongues that from their root
The very frenzy of defiance shoot.
So, with malignant and astonished stare
They gaze, as if the intruder's blood to freeze.
His head, and strove his prison-place to see.
All round was sombre darkness; but it teemed
With great white ghastly eyes that strangely gleamed
With pink and silvery flashings here and there,
And seemed to float and throb in the dun air;
Then by degrees grew motionless, and fixed
On him one savage and concentred gaze;
197
Features gigantic—furious—in amaze;
Wild brows upbranching broad, yet corrugate
With close-knit frowns ferocious; blubber lips
Stretched wide as rage and mockery can strain
Mouths—monstrous as the Shark's when 'mid the ship's
Exultant crew he gnashes in dumb pain—
That grin grotesque, intense and horrible hate,
And thrust out sidelong tongues that from their root
The very frenzy of defiance shoot.
So, with malignant and astonished stare
They gaze, as if the intruder's blood to freeze.
At length, accustomed to the gloom, he sees
What dwarfish forms those ponderous heads upbear;
Their crooked tortoise-legs, club-curved and short;
Their hands, like toasting-forks or tridents prest
Against each broad and circle-fretted breast;
And all the fact discerned at last, he knows
These pigmy-giants form red-ochred rows
Of rafters and pilasters to support
A spacious hall;—some carved in high relief;
While others standing from the walls aloof
Piled up in pillars of squat monsters rise
Perched on each others' shoulders to the roof.
The tribe's great Council-Chamber this should be,
Their Wháre-kúra, Hall of sacred Red,
For worship—justice; where the most adept,
The glorious deeds of their ancestral dead,
And pedigrees that back for centuries crept,
Safe in their memories by rehearsal kept.
Those forms were effigies (he might surmise)
Each of some famous ancestress or chief;
But to his fancy now the crowd appeared
A Gorgon-eyed and grinning demonry
Whose fiendish rancour his misfortune jeered.
What dwarfish forms those ponderous heads upbear;
Their crooked tortoise-legs, club-curved and short;
Their hands, like toasting-forks or tridents prest
Against each broad and circle-fretted breast;
And all the fact discerned at last, he knows
These pigmy-giants form red-ochred rows
Of rafters and pilasters to support
A spacious hall;—some carved in high relief;
While others standing from the walls aloof
Piled up in pillars of squat monsters rise
Perched on each others' shoulders to the roof.
The tribe's great Council-Chamber this should be,
Their Wháre-kúra, Hall of sacred Red,
For worship—justice; where the most adept,
The glorious deeds of their ancestral dead,
And pedigrees that back for centuries crept,
Safe in their memories by rehearsal kept.
Those forms were effigies (he might surmise)
Each of some famous ancestress or chief;
198
A Gorgon-eyed and grinning demonry
Whose fiendish rancour his misfortune jeered.
| Ranolf and Amohia | |