Cale Young Rice

THE WOMAN is mine, O chief,

White chief whom the spirits fear!

The woman is mine,

I have bought her with blood,

My mark is upon her brow.

I swept like a shark the sea,

O lord of unbelief!

I swept with a trusty score to her isle

And brought her home in my prau!

She lay in her atap-thatch,

Clad—ah!—in her red sarong.

The cocoanut palms

In the wind she heard,

But never my paddles near.

I seized her with mating arms—

O chief, no moon is her match!—

She cried to the hunting men of her tribe,

But lo, I carried her clear.

And tossed her across the surf!

O chief, she is mine, not yours!—

I bore her away

Though the pearls of her teeth

Bit deep, and her rage beat blind.

An hundred hissing darts,

Each dipped in a venom’s scurf,

Slid after us like swift asps of air,

But ever they sunk behind.

And so she is mine, twice mine,

For when in the jungle here

I hid her, O lord,

And sang to her heart

And planted the rubber round,

And bought her your rings and silks

And bracelets jewel-fine,

And swept her with kisses like the sea,

At last was her long hate drowned.

And so she is mine, is mine!

White chief, you must give her back.

I bought her with blood,

I will keep her with blood,

So chasten your heart of lust;

Or swift, as you say the night

Of Malaya falls, at a sign,

My people, led by the gods, shall fall,

And make of your passion dust.