And Rua burst from the glen and leaped on the shore of the brook, And straight for the roofs of the clan his vigorous way he took.
Swift were the heels of his flight, and loud behind as he went Rattled the leaping stones on the line of his long descent.
And ever he thought as he ran, and caught at his gasping breath, "O the fool of a Rua, Rua that runs to his death!
But the right is the right," thought Rua, and ran like the wind on the foam, "The right is the right for ever, and home for ever home.
For what though the oven smoke? And what though I die ere morn?
There was I nourished and tended, and there was Taheia born."Noon was high on the High-place, the second noon of the feast;And heat and shameful slumber weighed on people and priest;And the heart drudged slow in bodies heavy with monstrous meals;And the senseless limbs were scattered abroad like spokes of wheels;And crapulous women sat and stared at the stones anigh With a bestial droop of the lip and a swinish rheum in the eye.
As about the dome of the bees in the time for the drones to fall, The dead and the maimed are scattered, and lie, and stagger, and crawl;So on the grades of the terrace, in the ardent eye of the day, The half-awake and the sleepers clustered and crawled and lay;And loud as the dome of the bees, in the time of a swarming horde, A horror of many insects hung in the air and roared.
Rua looked and wondered; he said to himself in his heart:
"Poor are the pleasures of life, and death is the better part."But lo! on the higher benches a cluster of tranquil folk Sat by themselves, nor raised their serious eyes, nor spoke:
Women with robes unruffled and garlands duly arranged, Gazing far from the feast with faces of people estranged;And quiet amongst the quiet, and fairer than all the fair, Taheia, the well-descended, Taheia, heavy of hair.
And the soul of Rua awoke, courage enlightened his eyes, And he uttered a summoning shout and called on the clan to rise.
Over against him at once, in the spotted shade of the trees, Owlish and blinking creatures scrambled to hands and knees;On the grades of the sacred terrace, the driveller woke to fear, And the hand of the ham-drooped warrior brandished a wavering spear.
And Rua folded his arms, and scorn discovered his teeth;Above the war-crowd gibbered, and Rua stood smiling beneath.
Thick, like leaves in the autumn, faint, like April sleet, Missiles from tremulous hands quivered around his feet;And Taheia leaped from her place; and the priest, the ruby-eyed, Ran to the front of the terrace, and brandished his arms, and cried:
"Hold, O fools, he brings tidings!" and "Hold, 'tis the love of my heart!"Till lo! in front of the terrace, Rua pierced with a dart.
Taheia cherished his head, and the aged priest stood by, And gazed with eyes of ruby at Rua's darkening eye.
"Taheia, here is the end, I die a death for a man.
I have given the life of my soul to save an unsavable clan.
See them, the drooping of hams! behold me the blinking crew:
Fifty spears they cast, and one of fifty true!
And you, O priest, the foreteller, foretell for yourself if you can, Foretell the hour of the day when the Vais shall burst on your clan!
By the head of the tapu cleft, with death and fire in their hand, Thick and silent like ants, the warriors swarm in the land."And they tell that when next the sun had climbed to the noonday skies, It shone on the smoke of feasting in the country of the Vais.
NOTES TO THE FEAST OF FAMINE
IN this ballad, I have strung together some of the more striking particularities of the Marquesas. It rests upon no authority; it is in no sense, like "Rahero," a native story;but a patchwork of details of manners and the impressions of a traveller. It may seem strange, when the scene is laid upon these profligate islands, to make the story hinge on love. But love is not less known in the Marquesas than elsewhere; nor is there any cause of suicide more common in the islands.
Note 1, "PIT OF POPOI." Where the breadfruit was stored for preservation.
Note 2, "RUBY-RED." The priest's eyes were probably red from the abuse of kava. His beard (IB.) is said to be worth an estate; for the beards of old men are the favourite head adornment of the Marquesans, as the hair of women formed their most costly girdle. The former, among this generally beardless and short-lived people, fetch to-day considerable sums.
Note 3, "TIKIS." The tiki is an ugly image hewn out of wood or stone.
Note 4, "THE ONE-STRINGED HARP." Usually employed for serenades.
Note 5, "THE SACRED CABIN OF PALM." Which, however, no woman could approach. I do not know where women were tattooed;probably in the common house, or in the bush, for a woman was a creature of small account. I must guard the reader against supposing Taheia was at all disfigured; the art of the Marquesan tattooer is extreme; and she would appear to be clothed in a web of lace, inimitably delicate, exquisite in pattern, and of a bluish hue that at once contrasts and harmonises with the warm pigment of the native skin. It would be hard to find a woman more becomingly adorned than "a well-tattooed" Marquesan.
Note 6, "THE HORROR OF NIGHT." The Polynesian fear of ghosts and of the dark has been already referred to. Their life is beleaguered by the dead.
Note 7, "THE QUIET PASSAGE OF SOULS." So, I am told, the natives explain the sound of a little wind passing overhead unfelt.
Note 8, "THE FIRST OF THE VICTIMS FELL." Without doubt, this whole scene is untrue to fact. The victims were disposed of privately and some time before. And indeed I am far from claiming the credit of any high degree of accuracy for this ballad. Even in a time of famine, it is probable that Marquesan life went far more gaily than is here represented.
But the melancholy of to-day lies on the writer's mind.
TICONDEROGA
A LEGEND OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS
TICONDEROGA
THIS is the tale of the man Who heard a word in the night In the land of the heathery hills, In the days of the feud and the fight.
By the sides of the rainy sea, Where never a stranger came, On the awful lips of the dead, He heard the outlandish name.
