Читать книгу The Dyak chief, and other verses - Erwin Clarkson Garrett - Страница 5

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Hear ye a tale from the deepest depths of the heart of Borneo, Where the Moeroeng leaps in wild cascades, And the endless green of the jungle fades, And night shuts down on the fern-choked glades Where the kampong hearth-fires glow.

Listen, Oh White Man, that ye hear

The words of a Dyak chief,

Till ye learn the weight of the Dyak hate

And the depth of the Dyak grief.

Once in the days of my strength and pride

I loved a kampong maid,

And very old was the tale I told

’Neath the lace of the jungle shade.

And very old was the tale I told,

Though born year by year;

Till I thought of the headless waist I bore—

And I drew the maiden near:

And I pledged her there by the tree-banked stream

Where the rippling shadows flee,

“None but the skull of a kampong chief

Shall hang at my belt for thee.”