Volume 3 / Book 4 — THE FIRST SHIP IN THE NIGER.

'Tis tropic noon! and not a single sound Breathes on the eternal stillness all around; 'Tis tropic noon! and yet the sultry time Seems like the twilight of some fairy clime. Spreading in lone luxuriance round is seen The mangrove's tangled maze of sombre green; Thro' mists that dwell those baneful fens upon Large orbed and pale peers out the shrouded Sun, And struggling sickly thro' the vaporous day, Dull on the windless waters falls the pallid ray. So slumb'ringly the glassy river goes, The water-lily dips not as it flows; The swallow, haunter of the charmed spot, Skims through the silence, and awakes it not; Perch'd as in sleep, the gray kingfisher broods, A sentinel among the solitudes; And faints the breeze beneath the heavy sky, Nor bends the bulrush, as it loiters by Thro' long green walls of forest trees, that throw Unwavering shadows in the flood below; And droops from topmost boughs (like garlands dight By elfin hands) the gaudy parasite: Crowning the wave with flow'rs; and high above, The tall acacia moves, or seems to move Its feathery foliage in the enamor'd air, That seems, tho' all unheard, to linger there: Might'st fancy all, the earth, the air, the stream, Still unawaken'd from Creation's dream. When, hark! there sounds along the lonely shore A voice those wilds had never heard before; The wild bird dipp'd—the diamond-eye'd gazelle Started and paused,—then fled into the dell; Stirr'd by no breeze, the tree-tops seem'd to sigh— When, lo! again the still repeated cry; Hark! 'tis the leadsman, chanting loud and clear The changing fathoms, as a ship draws near,— And all at once rings out the Briton's hearty cheer!