(‘From a legend of Malay, told by Hugh Clifford’)
Where dwell the lovely, wild white women folk,
Mortal to man?
They never bowed their necks beneath the yoke,
They dwelt alone when the first morning broke
And Time began.
Taller are they than man, and very fair,
Their cheeks are pale,
At sight of them the tiger in his lair,
The falcon hanging in the azure air,
The eagles quail. [10]
The deadly shafts their nervous hands let fly
Are stronger than our strongest – in their form
Larger, more beauteous, carved amazingly,
And when they fight, the wild white women cry
The war-cry of the storm.
Their words are not as ours. If man might go
Among the waves of Ocean when they break
And hear them – hear the language of the snow
Falling on torrents – he might also know
The tongue they speak. [20]
Pure are they as the light; they never sinned,
But when the rays of the eternal fire
Kindle the West, their tresses they unbind
And fling their girdles to the Western wind,
Swept by desire.
Lo, maidens to the maidens then are born,
Strong children of the maidens and the breeze,
Dreams are not – in the glory of the morn,
Seen through the gates of ivory and horn –
More fair than these. [30]
And none may find their dwelling. In the shade
Primeval of the forest oaks they hide.
One of our race, lost in an awful glade,
Saw with his human eyes a wild white maid,
And gazing, died.