Road To Lappa-Pai

Village

Here are the sunlit spaces, The windswept open places, Where dragon-flies are darting, In pollen-drunken glee. (All velvet clad, they hover The drowsing shallows over, ’Neath Tula’s bamboo tree.) Now, come you through the lalang And feel the hint of sea tang, And catch the whispering huntsman Stalking piglets in the grass, The pathway upward winding, And soon, stray natives finding, We taunt them as we pass.

Now down to lower swamplands, The eerie, slimy, damp lands, Where creepers wreathe like ghost-hands And every song-bird, mute, Suspects a snake’s swift gliding, Or maybe demon hiding With face of age-old brute!

All childishly, we’re fearing Some hideous satyr leering, Maliciously or mockingly.

From out the gnarled trees.

The Pitcher plant that’s blooming, Gay little insects dooming, (For morbid swamps are these).

Come then in haste, ascending, Rai hill, a vista lending With graceful bend of river Where it flows to greet the sea.

Ah, welcome open spaces— The merry native faces!

And hear them call “Kai-u-u-un” (Old friend-belonga-me!) . . .

Alice Allen Innes.