La Source

A haunt the mountain roadside near,Wherefrom the cliff that rose behindKept back, through all the tropic year,The sundrouth and the whirling wind:These here could never entrance find;Perpetual summer balm it knew;And skyward, thick-set boughs entwinedTheir coil, where birds made sweet ado,And heaven through glossy leaves was deepest blue.

Twin relics of some forest grim,The last of their primeval raceLeft scatheless, knit them limb with limbAbove the reaches of that place;Time's hand against their high embraceFor seeming centuries had striven,But yet they grappled face to face,Still from their olden guard undrivenThough at their feet the cliff itself was riven.

And from the rift a stream outflowed,The fountain of that cloven grot,—La Source! Along the downward roadIt speeded, pitying the lotOf dwellers in each hot-roofed spotWhich fiery noonday held in rule,—Yet at the start neglected notTo broaden into one deep poolBeneath those trees its staunchless waters cool.

Near the green edge of this recessWe made our halt, and marvelled, moreThan at its sudden loveliness,To find reborn that life of yoreWhen ocean to Nausicaa boreThe wanderer from Calypso strayed,—For here swart dames, and beldames hoar,With many a round-limbed supple maid,Plashed in the pool and eyed us unafraid.

The simple, shameless washers there,Dusk children of the Haitian sun,Bent to the work their bodies, bareAnd brown, nor thought our gaze to shun,—Save that an elfish withered one,Scolding the white-toothed girls, set freeHer tongue, and bade them now have doneWith saucy pranks, nor wanton beBefore us stranger folk from over sea.

But on the sward one rose full lengthFrom her sole covering, and stoodDefiant in the beauteous strengthOf nature unabashed: a nudeAnd wilding slip of womanhood.Now for the master-hand, that shapedThe Indian Hunter in his wood,To mould that lissome form undrapedEre from its grace the sure young lines escaped!

Straight as the aloe's crested shootThat blooms a golden month and dies,She stayed an instant, with one footOn tiptoe, poising statue-wise,And stared, and mocked us with her eyes,—While rippling to her hip's firm swellThe mestee hair, that so outviesEurope's soft mesh, and holds right wellThe Afric sheen, in one dark torrent fell.

Fi, Angélique! we heard them scream,—What, could that child, in twice her years,Change to their like from this fair dream!Fi donc!—But she, as one who hearsAnd cares not, at her leisure nearsThe pool, and toward her mates at playPlunges,—and laughter filled our earsAs from La Source we turned awayAnd rode again into the glare of day.