Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson
page 38 of 50 (76%)
page 38 of 50 (76%)
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He could deduce from age to age
The web of island parentage; Best lay the rhyme, best lead the dance, For any festal circumstance: And fitly fashion oar and boat, A palace or an armour coat. None more availed than he to raise The strong, suffumigating blaze, Or knot the wizard leaf: none more, Upon the untrodden windward shore Of the isle, beside the beating main, To cure the sickly and constrain, With muttered words and waving rods, The gibbering and the whistling gods. But he, though thus with hand and head He ruled, commanded, charmed, and led, And thus in virtue and in might Towered to contemporary sight - Still in fraternal faith and love, Remained below to reach above, Gave and obeyed the apt command, Pilot and vassal of the land. IV My Tembinok' from men like these Inherited his palaces, His right to rule, his powers of mind, His cocoa-islands sea-enshrined. Stern bearer of the sword and whip, |
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