Page:Moyarra- An Australian Legend in Two Cantos, 1891.djvu/41

Which o'er him was hovering instinct with gloom.
Like ice was the chill of the deadly dews
That infected his brain with a poisonous juice,
Rendering it feeble and languishing:
He felt the cold torpor of death's touch cling
To his quivering flesh, as each fixed clammy limb
Was numbed by the spell of that spectre dim.
The throb of his pulse waxes faint in his heart—
Shall it cease? With a sudden and desperate start
The chains of his slumber he rends asunder:—
Was that lightning a vision, illusion that thunder?

⁠Calm, overhead, the clear blue sky
Replete with thousand isles of light
⁠Met the wild wonder of his eye
And soothed the fever of his sight.
Lulled in repose, all nature lay
Resigned to night's benignant sway.
⁠But the beaded drops of terror hung,
On his hot temples; still among