Lit2Go

Majestical, lonely, forbidding, the desolate forest of cypress
Guards at the mouth of the river. Beneath them the banyan-like mangrove
Spreads faro’er the swamps and the sea-covered marshes,
All alive with the cormorant, curlew and the plume bearing egret
That, feeding by the sluggish rich river, arise encircling their branches,
Incessantly bound in a dream=like oriental devotion,
Laps at their feet the tropical tide. Steeped with a lotus-like fragrance
Comes the breeze from the sea as a breath of the far-off Bahamas.

Stand,—brooding through hours of moonlight o’er the silvery radiant lustre
Sheening in mystical beauty the sea; and a spirity rebellious
Seems to stir through the depth of their leafage, close-woven and moss-hung,
And to ebb from their shadows malignant, with a sorrowing burden
Of a wiser and fuller knowledge,—of a comfortless desolation.
Stand,—guarding the age-buried wrecks with their silver and golden treasure;—