Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarone
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I'll bite, Dominick, as I don't recognize this - what's the verse?
|
Congo - Vachel Lindsay 1911
A classic safari adventure poem.
It was that or Charge of the Light Brigade.
THEN I had religion.
Then i had a vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
Then along that river-bank
A thousand miles
Tattoed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.
And "BLOOD" screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
"BLOOD" screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors,
"Whirl ye the deadly voodoo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing!
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, Boom"
A roaring, epic, rag-time tune
From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,
Torch-eyed and horrible,
Foam-flanked and terrible.
Boom, ...
Boom, ...
Boom, ...
Like the wind
Hoo, Hoo, Hoo.