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Ranolf and Amohia

IV

IV.

Short breathing time the Angry Star
Gave Tangi, nor retreated far.
Soon as he saw his feint to draw
The veteran from his Fort had failed,
Again he marshalled all his band
Upon the flat beside the shore.
Then with a new device though planned
Before, with hearts and hopes new-fanned,
And by the cunning Priest beguiled
With omens sure and safe, once more
The stubborn stronghold they assailed.
With songs and yells and gestures wild
In swarms across the ditch they swept;
In swarms the broken barrier leapt;
Once more by casual shots annoyed
Around the platform swift deployed.
Again—scarce waiting their attack—
The fiery Chief, whom neither age
page 387 Nor odds, nor toil made slow or slack,
Had sallied forth to force them back,
Or hand-to-hand at least engage
The first who scaled that fighting-stage.
So all the terrace circling round
The ramparts, as before, was crowned
With thronging men in deadly broil
O'erthrown—o'erthrowing; a dark coil
Convulsive, fluctuating, dense,
Of agonising forms confused,
In every violent posture used
In mad attack or lough defence!
A mass of spears and clubs that crossed
And clashed, and limbs that twined and tossed,
As leathery links of seaweed lithe
At ebbing tide on rock-reefs writhe:
And all the forms and limbs exact
In statuesque proportions cast—
Dark symmetry of strength compact;
Where working muscles rose and fell
With shifting undulations, fast
As poppling wavelets when the breeze
The tiderip grates in narrow seas!
Till all that ring of wrestlings rife,
Continuous knots of naked strife,
Had seemed, to looker-on at ease,
Some crowded Phigaleian frieze,
Or Parthenaic miracle
Of Art, awaked to sudden life—
Or worked in terra-cotta, say,
Brown Lapithae in deadly fray;
Large-limbed Theseian heroes old,
But darkly dyed, of kindred race,
page 388 Vhose naked forms of classic mould
One wide-raging death-embrace
Their naked struggling foes enfold.

But when the fight was at its height
His new device Te Whether tried.
Up-rushed a shouting band outside
The black-charred fence before kid low.
In order good, a double row
They came; each warrior of the first
Poising a platted green-flax sling
Well wetted in the nearest spring;
And in the sling a red-not stone,
Which, high above the ramparts thrown
Should soon make such a blaze outburst
From walls of rush and roofs of thatch
As might the whole defences catch,
And force the stifled foe to fly
The Fort he held so stubbornly.
The second rank bore, close behind,
In baskets green with earth safe-lined,
Of heated stones a fresh supply.
A burning volley, thick and hot
As soft red lumps of scoria whirl,
In showers from dark abysses shot
By old Vesuvius in his play,
His common freaks of every day,
When all his lava floods repose:
Or such as o'er his creviced snows
The grander Tongariro throws—
While dread reverberations round
His sulphurous crater-depths resound—
page 389 When all the solemn midnight skies
With that red beacon of surprise
He startles—seeming from afar,
Though low upon the horizon's bound,
Sole object in the vault profound
! So baleful glares its fiery shine,
To all the tribes an ominous sign
Of death and wide disastrous war.
—Now, now, alert and active be,
Ye children of the 'Wailing Sea!'
Your shifty foes will else make good
The threats erelong thatt boastful song
Sent echoing late o'er vale and wood!
—Not wholly unprepared they speed
To baulk and baffle, if they may
Their fierce assailant's fresh essay.
For they had seen above the green
The smoke of fires lit up when need
Was none of fires for warmth or food;
And soon the project understood.
So all the gourds they could provide
Were ready, every house beside;
And even a large canoe to be
Their tank in this extremity
Hauled up and fitly placed;—all filled
With water from a well, supplied
Itself by channels issuing through
The rock upon the Lake, below
Its surface cut; their outlet so
From keenest-eyed besiegers' view
Well-hidden by its waters blue.
And when that shower of firestones red
Came whirling, whizzing overhead,
page 390 For this vocation primed and drilled,
All those whom duty did not call
To watch the gates, defend the wall
—The old by age outworn, the young
With sinews yet for fight unstrung—
And young or old, the women too,
With Arnohia first of all,—
Quick to the calabashes flew
Or tottered as they best could do.
And when the slightest whiff of smoke
From any roof or rush-wall broke,
Some hand was prompt the place to drench
And ere it spread, the burning quench.
But Amo, first among the crowd,
With cheery accents, low not loud,
As if at once their hearts to warm
To effort, yet repress alarm—
With smiles upon her face—howe'er
Her heart might throb with secret care
Seemed ever everywhere at hand,
To guide, encourage, cheer, command!
And once when fire broke out indeed
And none just then appeared to heed,
Nor quick enough the water came—
Up to the roof she leapt, she sprung,
And o'er the thatch her mantle flung,
And trampled out the mounting flame.—
With arms and that firm bosom bare,
In skirt of glossy flax, as there
Aloft in such excited mood
Hurrying her hastening handmaids, stood
The dauntless Girl—she looked as rare
For spirit, grace, commanding mien,
page 391 As loveliest Amazonian Queen
In those surpassing friezes seen!