CHAPTER LII.
The Charming Yoomy Sings
The morrow came; and three abreast, with snorting prows, we raced along; our mat-sails panting to the breeze. All present partook of the life of the air; and unanimously Yoomy was called upon for a song. The canoes were passing a long, white reef, sparkling with shells, like a jeweler’s case: and thus Yoomy sang in the same old strain as of yore; beginning aloud, where he had left off in his soul:—
Her sweet, sweet mouth!
The peach-pearl shell:—
Red edged its lips,
That softly swell,
Just oped to speak,
With blushing cheek,
That fisherman
With lonely spear
On the reef ken,
And lift to ear
Its voice to hear,—
Soft sighing South!
Like this, like this,—
The rosy kiss!—
That maiden’s mouth.
A shell! a shell!
A vocal shell!
Song-dreaming,
In its inmost dell!
Her bosom! Two buds half blown, they tell;
A little valley between perfuming;
That roves away,
Deserting the day,—
The day of her eyes illuming;—
That roves away, o’er slope and fell,
Till a soft, soft meadow becomes the dell.
Thus far, old Mohi had been wriggling about in his seat, twitching his beard, and at every couplet looking up expectantly, as if he desired the company to think, that he was counting upon that line as the last; But now, starting to his feet, he exclaimed, “Hold, minstrel! thy muse’s drapery is becoming disordered: no more!”
“Then no more it shall be,” said Yoomy, “But you have lost a glorious sequel.”
CHAPTER LIII.
They Draw Nigh Unto Land
In good time, after many days sailing, we snuffed the land from afar, and came to a great country, full of inland mountains, north and south stretching far out of sight. “All hail, Kolumbo!” cried Yoomy.
Coasting by a portion of it, which Mohi called Kanneeda, a province of King Bello’s, we perceived the groves rocking in the wind; their flexible boughs bending like bows; and the leaves flying forth, and darkening the landscape, like flocks of pigeons.
“Those groves must soon fall,” said Mohi.
“Not so,” said Babbalanja. “My lord, as these violent gusts are formed by the hostile meeting of two currents, one from over the lagoon, the other from land; they may be taken as significant of the occasional variances between Kanneeda and Dominora.”