While overhead the moon in regal state
Trails robes of gauze enmesh’d with astral gleam.
The misty night exhales a poisonous balm
From vague-spread margins, where the shadows lie,
Of softly-tufted bush and tropic palm;
Then from the silence, echoless, on high
Mounts through the torpor of the deadly calm,
To ethereal plains the siren’s piercing cry.
ON THE SENEGAL.