Lo, now, when to your task in the great house
At morning through the portico you pass,
One moment glance, where by the pillared wall
Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke,
Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument
Of faiths forgot and races undivined:
Sit now disconsolate, remembering well
The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd,
The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice,
Incessant, of the breakers on the shore.
As far as these from their ancestral shrine,
So far, so foreign, your divided friends
Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.
Apemama.
XXXVII - THE HOUSE OF TEMBINOKA
[At my departure from the island of Apemama, for which you will
look in vain in most atlases, the King and I agreed, since we both
set up to be in the poetical way, that we should celebrate our
separation in verse. Whether or not his Majesty has been true to his
bargain, the laggard posts of the Pacific may perhaps inform me in
six months, perhaps not before a year. The following lines represent
my part of the contract, and it is hoped, by their pictures of
strange manners, they may entertain a civilised audience. Nothing
throughout has been invented or exaggerated; the lady herein referred
to as the author's muse has confined herself to stringing into rhyme
facts or legends that I saw or heard during two months' residence
upon the island.
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