Port-of-Spain

Where down the purple slope that slants   
Across the hills, the sun-rays glance   
With hot stare through the cocoa-trees,   
And wine-palms tent beside the seas,   
To Port-of-Spain, long leagues away,           
Just as the mellow mist of day   
Was glowing in the east, there came   
A wayworn man, whose feeble frame   
And weary step and silent tears   
Meant more of sorrow than of years.           
But when he saw the seaport town,   
With houses bamboo-thatched and brown,   
And marked each winding lane and street,   
Cool-shaded from the tropic heat,   
He bent him prone upon the ground           
For this,—that he at last had found   
What brought a worn heart hope of rest.

*        *        *        *        *
   
The night was hot, and faint, and still,—   
The moon, above the wooded hill,   
A line of silver lances pressed           
Across the sea-waves to the west.   
The bell-bird, with metallic throat,   
Sounded a dull and doleful note,   
And in the distant depths of wood   
The bittern broke the solitude.           
But, save the sound of sea and bird,   
Scarce anything the silence stirred.

(Extract from The Treasure of the Tropic Seas)