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Ranolf and Amohia

[section]

The night wore on—his friends were gone;
Still Ranolf paced and mused alone.
It chanced, a little lad who slept
In his men's hut that evening—come
For change' sake from his neighbouring home—
page 200 Felt thirsty; from his mattings crept,
The yellow calabash to find,
Which, hollowed out, a hardened rind,
Was mostly full of water kept.
Twas empty: looking out, "'Tis light
(He thought) almost as day:"—So quite
Forgot his native fear of Night,
And to the spring beneath the hill
Set off his calabash to fill.

The spring was close beside the path
To that quick-bubbling crystal bath
Where Amohia rested; she
Could in the moonlit distance see
The cot and its karaka-tree,
And Ranolf now emerge, so clear,
Now in its shadow disappear.
And she had marked the little lad
Set off her way with heart how glad;
And when he neared her bright retreat,
That heart with high expectance beat.
Hard-by there grew in snowy bloom
Thickets of aromatic broom;
Stand but a yard, she ne'er were seen.
Into the copse she quickly slipped,
Three steps from where tin; fountain dripped.
There, breathless, stirless, on the watch,
She formed her little scheme—until
The thirsty lad had drunk his fill,
And held his calabash to catch
The water of the trickling spring.
Then in a warbling voice, low sweet and wild,
page 201 That intertwined with its harmonious plash,
The hidden Girl began to sing
A ditty to the startled Child
About "a fountain" and "a calabash:"