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Ranolf and Amohia

VI

VI.

'Tis burning Noon: from heat and glare
How sweet the bower the lovers share!
A Lakeside cleft—a rock-recess
Of soft sun-chequered quietness,
A nook for lovers made express.
Like birds in some umbrageous tree
Girt round with leaves they seemed to be,
A hollow globe of greenery:
For twisting, arching, overhead
Dark serpentining stems were spread;
And arching twisting, down below,
Stems serpentining seemed to grow;
While on a plane of light between,
Suspended lay those skiffs serene.
Sunbathed arose the dome-like roof
A strangely-splendid wondrous woof;
Whose dark-green glistening foliage seemed
Thick over-showered with shining snow,
Except where blood-red masses gleamed—
Such luminous crimson—all aglow!
White buds and opening leaves the first,
With silvery-sheening velvet lined;
page 311 The last, rich-tufted bloom that burst
Bright-bristling, with the sun behind;
As if whole trees, 'mid heaped snow-showers
Were turning into burning flowers!
Below, the pair as thus in air
Upbuoyed, a sight as fair enjoyed;
The hollow shadowy floor, o'erlaid,
Beneath the clear transparent void,
With silvery-crimson soft brocade,
To that above in shape and hue
So like, the seeming from the true
By its inversion best they knew.
It was the 'downy ironheart '
That from the cliffs o'erhanging grew,
And o'er the alcove, every part,
Such beauteous leaves and blossoms threw,
And made this cool sequestered nest
For silent, lone and loving rest.

Then for refreshment in the noontide heat,
With mockery of much ado,
And lips comprest and pursed-up too,
And little nods of playful pride,
And self-complacent confidence to win
Applause at fine arrangements so complete—
As who should say:'Now open wide
Your eyes and see how I provide!—
Fair Amo with arch mimic pomp outdrew
A platted basket hid in her canoe,
Cool-packed with leaves and lightly tied—
A flax-green basket autumn-piled; wherein
Date-like karakas made a golden show
Quince-coloured and quince-smelling; faintly sweet
page 312 Soft aromatic pepper-spikes were seen;
Potato-apples of the poro-poro tall
Rich-mellowing from their crude lip-burning green;
And, bounteous 'mid these wood-gifts wild and small,
Ripe, slippery-seeded and of juiciest flow,
Great water-melons melting crisp with crimson snow.

Nor was there lack of more substantial food,
Leaf-hidden in a smaller green flax-hamper;
Choice too, for appetites so young and good—
As roasted wild duck, red-gray parrot stewed,
And bread in its primeval form of 'damper'—
Unleavened cakes of palatable maize
Well pounded by Te Manu, and well kneaded
By Amo, and in hot wood-ashes clean
Well baked—or rather in oven of simpler sort
Than most remote 'Stone-period' could report—
Mere flagstones laid and heated without trouble
Upon a quenchless fountain's boiling bubble;
Flat cakes that dish and platter superseded;
And used instead, recalled in this far scene
A moment's memory of old school-boy days
To Ranolf—that crab-apple-feasted crew
Of Ocean-wanderers, wearily reposing
In maple shadows on green sunny slopes,
And watching with dim eyes and fading hopes,
The sparkle of the sea-waves summer-beaded;
Then fair Ascanius luckily disclosing
The prophecy's fulfilment, else unheeded,
"What! must we eat our very tables too!"—
Nay, one more luxury swelled the savoury list—
That dainty by our daintiest humourist
page 313 So prized—roast sucking-pig! for two of these
Nimble Te Manu had contrived to seize,
Cut off by clever doubles yesternight
From a long train that scampered after
Their grunting dam, and, driven from her track
Could not escape the youngster's clutches, though
They dodged him, as disabled half by laughter,
He obstinately chased them to and fro
An hour at least, imprisoned as they were
Between a shrunken river, and cliff chalk-white
That wall-like rising at their back
From the broad gravelbed upright
Without a blade of verdure, bright and bare,
Made the small runaways look doubly black,
Doubly conspicuous in the sunset's glare.