Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/80

Half hearing only broken words, and names
Of tribes or places, weird, and all germane
To the mysterious realm of forest wild.
But later still, silence inviolate reigns;
Save for a low communing of weird wind
Among high crowns of leafy ebonies,
Moving and murmuring, while star-worlds pass over.
When I awake, dark forms are lying round:
Firelight warms faintly mighty sylvan pillars,
Rising from gloom to gloom: they seem to my
Drowsed senses ancient phantoms of the night.
Thousands of years, some say, the huge Mowana
Flourishing lives, while mortal men around
Fall with his leaves, and wither at his feet.
How could he tell of fleeting hopes and fears,
Of myriad passing loves, and woes, and wars!
Emmets and men, teeming and vanishing,
In halls of stone, or tunnell'd, chamber'd hills,
Or wattled huts, as here I men's thrilling lives
Gleam, firefly-like, a moment wonderful;
Frail, nor so blithe as yon fair living lights,
That are and are not in the fragrant shade.