Then bend your gaze across the waste; what see ye! The giraffe,
Majestic, stalks towards the lagoon, the turbid lymph to quaff;
With outstretched neck and tongue, adust he kneels him down to cool
His hot thirst with a welcome draught from the foul and brackish pool.
A rustling sound, a roar, a bound,—the lion sits astride
Upon his giant courser's back. Did ever king so ride?
Had ever king a steed so rare, caparisons of state
To match the dappled skin whereon that rider sits elate?
In the muscles of the neck his teeth are plunged with ravenous greed;
His tawny mane is tossing round the withers of the steed
Up leaping with a hollow yell of anguish and surprise,
Away, away, in wild dismay, the camel-leopard flies.
His feet have wings; see how he springs across the moonlit plain!
As from the sockets they would burst, his glaring eyeballs strain;
In thick black streams of purling blood, full fast his life is fleeting;
The stillness of the desert hears his heart's tumultuous beating.
Like the cloud that, through the wilderness, the path of Israel traced,—
Like an airy phantom, dull and worn, a spirit of the waste,—
From the sandy sea uprising, as the waterspout from ocean,
A whirling cloud of dust keeps pace with the courser's fiery motion.
Croaking companion of their flight, the vulture whirs on high;
Below, the terror of the fold, the panther fierce and sly,
And hyenas foul, round graves that prowl, join in the horrid race;
By the footprints wet with gore and sweat, their monarch's course they trace.
They see him on his living throne, and quake with fear the while;
With claws of steel he tears piecemeal his cushion's painted pile.
On! on! no pause, no rest, giraffe, while life and strength remain!
The steed by such a rider backed may madly plunge in vain.
Reeling upon the desert's verge, he falls, and breathes his last;
The courser, stained with dust and foam, is the rider's full repast.
O'er Madagascar, eastward far, a faint flush is descried;—
Thus nightly, o'er his broad domain, the king of beasts doth ride.
—From the German.
The lion is said to have a special liking for the flesh of the Hottentots, and with great obstinacy will follow one of these unfortunate savages.