{ "id": "john-g-neihardt/the-song-of-hugh-glass", "title": "The Song of Hugh Glass", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "John G. Neihardt", "poet_slug": "john-g-neihardt", "language": "en", "book": "A Cycle of the West", "book_slug": "a-cycle-of-the-west", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 3, "container": "The Song of Hugh Glass", "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1915, "venue": "The Song of Hugh Glass (1915)", "note": "Located in the June 1919 reprint of this volume, which is the same electrotyped setting: its copyright page reads \"Copyright, 1915, 1919\" and \"Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1915. Reprinted June, 1919.\" The 1915 first printing itself has not been seen here.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/songofhughglass00neih" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/john-g-neihardt_a-cycle-of-the-west", "file": "the-song-of-hugh-glass.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://archive.org/details/songthree00neihrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000673224", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53667", "https://archive.org/details/songofhughglass00neih", "https://archive.org/details/bp_574832" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-20" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 2927, "n_stanzas": 180, "n_parts": 5, "longest_line_chars": 57, "max_indent": 9 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [ { "ordinal": "I", "title": "Graybeard and Goldhair", "stanza_range": [ 0, 33 ] }, { "ordinal": "II", "title": "The Awakening", "stanza_range": [ 33, 48 ] }, { "ordinal": "III", "title": "The Crawl", "stanza_range": [ 48, 126 ] }, { "ordinal": "IV", "title": "The Return of the Ghost", "stanza_range": [ 126, 148 ] }, { "ordinal": "V", "title": "Jamie", "stanza_range": [ 148, 180 ] } ], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "The year was eighteen hundred twenty three.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas when the guns that blustered at the Ree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had ceased to brag, and ten score martial clowns", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Turned from the unwhipped Aricara towns,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Earning the scornful laughter of the Sioux.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A withering blast the arid South still blew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And creeks ran thin beneath the glaring sky;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For ’twas a month ere honking geese would fly", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Southward before the Great White Hunter’s face:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And many generations of their race,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As bow-flung arrows, now have fallen spent.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It happened then that Major Henry went", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With eighty trappers up the dwindling Grand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bound through the weird, unfriending barren-land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For where the Big Horn meets the Yellowstone;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And old Hugh Glass went with them. Large of bone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deep-chested, that his great heart might have play,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray-bearded, gray of eye and crowned with gray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was Glass. It seemed he never had been young;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, for the grudging habit of his tongue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "None knew the place or season of his birth.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slowly he ’woke to anger or to mirth;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet none laughed louder when the rare mood fell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hate in him was like a still, white hell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A thing of doom not lightly reconciled.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What memory he kept of wife or child", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was never told; for when his comrades sat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the evening fire with pipe and chat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Exchanging talk of home and gentler days,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Old Hugh stared long upon the pictured blaze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what he saw went upward in the smoke.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But once, as with an inner lightning stroke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The veil was rent, and briefly men discerned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What pent-up fires of selfless passion burned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the still gray smoldering of him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There was a rakehell lad, called Little Jim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jamie or Petit Jacques; for scarce began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The downy beard to mark him for a man.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blue-eyed was he and femininely fair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A maiden might have coveted his hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That trapped the sunlight in its tangled skein:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, tardily, outflowered the wild blond strain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That gutted Rome grown overfat in sloth.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A Ganymedes haunted by a Goth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was Jamie. When the restive ghost was laid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed some fancy-ridden child who played", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At manliness ’mid all those bearded men.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sternest heart was drawn to Jamie then.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But his one mood ne’er linked two hours together.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To schedule Jamie’s way, as prairie weather,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was to get fact by wedding doubt and whim;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For very lightly slept that ghost in him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No cloudy brooding went before his wrath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That, like a thunder-squall, recked not its path,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But raged upon what happened in its way.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some called him brave who saw him on that day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When Ashley stormed a bluff town of the Ree,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all save beardless Jamie turned to flee", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For shelter from that steep, lead-harrowed slope.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet, hardly courage, but blind rage agrope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Inspired the foolish deed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas then old Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tore off the gray mask, and the heart shone through.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, halting in a dry, flood-guttered draw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trappers rallied, looked aloft and saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That travesty of war against the sky.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out of a breathless hush, the old man’s cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Leaped shivering, an anguished cry and wild", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As of some mother fearing for her child,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And up the steep he went with mighty bounds.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Long afterward the story went the rounds,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How old Glass fought that day. With gun for club,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grim as a grizzly fighting for a cub,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He laid about him, cleared the way, and so,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Supported by the firing from below,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brought Jamie back. And when the deed was done,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Taking the lad upon his knee: “My Son,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brave men are not ashamed to fear,” said Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“And I’ve a mind to make a man of you;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So here’s your first acquaintance with the law!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereat he spanked the lad with vigorous paw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, having done so, limped away to bed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, wounded in the hip, the old man bled.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It was a month before he hobbled out,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie, like a fond son, hung about", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old man’s tent and waited upon him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And often would the deep gray eyes grow dim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With gazing on the boy; and there would go⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though Spring-fire should waken out of snow⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wistful light across that mask of gray.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And once Hugh smiled his enigmatic way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While poring long on Jamie’s face, and said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“So with their sons are women brought to bed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sore wounded!” Thus united were the two:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And some would dub the old man “Mother Hugh”;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While those in whom all living waters sank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To some dull inner pool that teemed and stank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With formless evil, into that morass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gazed, and saw darkly there, as in a glass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The foul shape of some weakly envied sin.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For each man builds a world and dwells therein.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor could these know what mocking ghost of Spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stirred Hugh’s gray world with dreams of blossoming", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That wooed no seed to swell or bird to sing.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So might a dawn-struck digit of the moon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dream back the rain of some old lunar June", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ache through all its craters to be green.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Little they know what life’s one love can mean,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who shrine it in a bower of peace and bliss:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pang dwelling in a puckered cicatrice", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "More truly figures this belated love.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet very precious was the hurt thereof,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grievous to bear, too dear to cast away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now Jamie went with Hugh; but who shall say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If ’twas a warm heart or a wind of whim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Love, or the rover’s teasing itch in him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Moved Jamie? Howsoe’er, ’twas good to see", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Graybeard and Goldhair riding knee to knee,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One age in young adventure. One who saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Has likened to a February thaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh’s mellow mood those days; and truly so,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For when the tempering Southwest wakes to blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A phantom April over melting snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deep in the North some new white wrath is brewed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out of a dim-trailed inner solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old man summoned many a stirring story,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lived grimly once, but now shot through with glory", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Caught from the wondering eyes of him who heard⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tales jaggèd with the bleak unstudied word,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stark saga-stuff. “A fellow that I knew,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So nameless went the hero that was Hugh⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A mere pelt merchant, as it seemed to him;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet trailing epic thunders through the dim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whist world of Jamie’s awe. And so they went,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One heart, it seemed, and that heart well content", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With tale and snatch of song and careless laughter.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Never before, and surely never after,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gray old man seemed nearer to his youth⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That myth that somehow had to be the truth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet could not be convincing any more.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now when the days of travel numbered four", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nearer drew the barrens with their need,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On Glass, the hunter, fell the task to feed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those four score hungers when the game should fail.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For no young eye could trace so dim a trail,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or line the rifle sights with speed so true.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor might the wistful Jamie go with Hugh;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“For,” so Hugh chaffed, “my trick of getting game", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might teach young eyes to put old eyes to shame.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An old dog never risks his only bone.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Wolves prey in packs, the lion hunts alone”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is somewhat nearer what he should have meant.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And so with merry jest the old man went;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so they parted at an unseen gate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That even then some gust of moody fate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clanged to betwixt them; each a tale to spell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One in the nightmare scrawl of dreams from hell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One in the blistering trail of days a-crawl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Venomous footed. Nor might it ere befall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These two should meet in after days and be", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Graybeard and Goldhair riding knee to knee,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Recounting with a bluff, heroic scorn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The haps of either tale. ’Twas early morn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When Hugh went forth, and all day Jamie rode", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With Henry’s men, while more and more the goad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of eager youth sore fretted him, and made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dusty progress of the cavalcade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The journey of a snail flock to the moon;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the shadow-weaving afternoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Turned many fingers nightward⁠—then he fled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pricking his horse, nor deigned to turn his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At any dwindling voice of reprimand;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For somewhere in the breaks along the Grand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Surely Hugh waited with a goodly kill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hoofbeats of ghostly steeds on every hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mysterious, muffled hoofs on every bluff!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spurred echo horses clattering up the rough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Confluent draws! These flying Jamie heard.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lagging air droned like the drowsy word", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of one who tells weird stories late at night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half headlong joy and half delicious fright,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His day-dream’s pace outstripped the plunging steed’s.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lean galloper in a wind of splendid deeds,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like Hugh’s, he seemed unto himself, until,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snorting, a-haunch above a breakneck hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The horse stopped short⁠—then Jamie was aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of lonesome flatlands fading skyward there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath him, and, zigzag on either hand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A purple haze denoted how the Grand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forked wide ’twixt sunset and the polar star.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A-tiptoe in the stirrups, gazing far,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw no Hugh nor any moving thing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save for a welter of cawing crows, a-wing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About some banquet in the further hush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One faint star, set above the fading blush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sunset, saw the coming night, and grew.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With hand for trumpet, Jamie gave halloo;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And once again. For answer, the horse neighed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some vague mistrust now made him half afraid⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some formless dread that stirred beneath the will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As far as sleep from waking. Down the hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Close-footed in the skitter of the shale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The spurred horse floundered to the solid vale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And galloped to the northwest, whinnying.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The outstripped air moaned like a wounded thing;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Jamie gave the lie unto his dread.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“The old man’s camping out tonight,” he said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Somewhere about the forks, as like as not;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there’ll be hunks of fresh meat steaming hot,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And fighting stories by a dying fire!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The sunset reared a luminous phantom spire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That, crumbling, sifted ashes down the sky.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now, pausing, Jamie sent a searching cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into the twilit river-skirting brush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the vast denial of the hush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The champing of the snaffled horse seemed loud.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then, startling as a voice beneath a shroud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A muffled boom woke somewhere up the stream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like vague thunder hearkened in a dream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Drawled back to silence. Now, with heart abound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Keen for the quarter of the perished sound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lad spurred gaily; for he doubted not", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His cry had brought Hugh’s answering rifle shot.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The laggard air was like a voice that sang,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie half believed he sniffed the tang", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of woodsmoke and the smell of flesh a-roast;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When presently before him, like a ghost,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upstanding, huge in twilight, arms flung wide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gray form loomed. The wise horse reared and shied,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snorting his inborn terror of the bear!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the whirlwind of a moment there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Betwixt the brute’s hoarse challenge and the charge,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lad beheld, upon the grassy marge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of a small spring that bullberries stooped to scan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ragged heap that should have been a man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A huddled, broken thing⁠—and it was Hugh!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "There was no need for any closer view.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As, on the instant of a lightning flash", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ere yet the split gloom closes with a crash,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A landscape stares with every circumstance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of rock and shrub⁠—just so the fatal chance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Hugh’s one shot, made futile with surprise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was clear to Jamie. Then before his eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The light whirled in a giddy dance of red;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, doubting not the crumpled thing was dead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That was a friend, with but a skinning knife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He would have striven for the hated life", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That triumphed there: but with a shriek of fright", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The mad horse bolted through the falling night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie, fumbling at his rifle boot,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Heard the brush crash behind him where the brute", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came headlong, close upon the straining flanks.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when at length low-lying river banks⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White rubble in the gloaming⁠—glimmered near,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A swift thought swept the mind of Jamie clear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of anger and of anguish for the dead.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce seemed the raging beast a thing to dread,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But some foul-playing braggart to outwit.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now hurling all his strength upon the bit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He sank the spurs, and with a groan of pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The plunging horse, obedient to the rein,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swerved sharply streamward. Sliddering in the sand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bear shot past. And suddenly the Grand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Loomed up beneath and rose to meet the pair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That rode a moment upon empty air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then smote the water in a shower of spray.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when again the slowly ebbing day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came back to them, a-drip from nose to flank,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The steed was scrambling up the further bank,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie saw across the narrow stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some vague shape of fury in a dream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The checked beast ramping at the water’s rim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Doubt struggled with a victor’s thrill in him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As, hand to buckle of the rifle-sheath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He thought of dampened powder; but beneath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rawhide flap the gun lay snug and dry.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then as the horse wheeled and the mark went by⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A patch of shadow dancing upon gray⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He fired. A sluggish thunder trailed away;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The spreading smoke-rack lifted slow, and there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Floundering in a seethe of foam, the bear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugged yielding water for the foe that slew!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Triumphant, Jamie wondered what old Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would think of such a “trick of getting game”!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Young eyes” indeed!⁠—And then that memory came,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like a dull blade thrust back into a wound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One moment ’twas as though the lad had swooned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into a dream-adventure, waking there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To sicken at the ghastly land, astare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some familiar face gone strange at last.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But as the hot tears came, the moment passed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Song snatches, broken tales⁠—a troop forlorn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like merry friends of eld come back to mourn⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O’erwhelmed him there. And when the black bulk churned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The star-flecked stream no longer, Jamie turned,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Recrossed the river and rode back to Hugh.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A burning twist of valley grasses threw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blear light about the region of the spring.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then Jamie, torch aloft and shuddering,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knelt there beside his friend, and moaned: “O Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If I had been with you⁠—just been with you!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We might be laughing now⁠—and you are dead.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With gentle hand he turned the hoary head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That he might see the good gray face again.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The torch burned out, the dark swooped back, and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His grief was frozen with an icy plunge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In horror. ’Twas as though a bloody sponge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had wiped the pictured features from a slate!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, pillaged by an army drunk with hate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Home stares upon the homing refugee.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A red gout clung where either brow should be;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The haughty nose lay crushed amid the beard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thick with slow ooze, whence like a devil leered", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The battered mouth convulsed into a grin.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Nor did the darkness cover, for therein", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some torch, unsnuffed, with blear funereal flare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still painted upon black that alien stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To make the lad more terribly alone.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then in the gloom there rose a broken moan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quick stifled; and it seemed that something stirred", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the body. Doubting that he heard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lad felt, with a panic catch of breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pale vagrants from the legendry of death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Potential in the shadows there. But when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The motion and the moaning came again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hope, like a shower at daybreak, cleansed the dark,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the lad’s heart something like a lark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sang morning. Bending low, he crooned: “Hugh, Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It’s Jamie⁠—don’t you know?⁠—I’m here with you.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "As one who in a nightmare strives to tell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shouting across the gap of some dim hell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What things assail him; so it seemed Hugh heard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And flung some unintelligible word", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Athwart the muffling distance of his swoon.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now kindled by the yet unrisen moon,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The East went pale; and like a naked thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little wind ran vexed and shivering", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the dusk, till Jamie shivered too", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And worried lest ’twere bitter cold where Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hung clutching at the bleak, raw edge of life.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Jamie rose, and with his hunting-knife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Split wood and built a fire. Nor did he fear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The staring face now, for he found it dear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With the warm presence of a friend returned.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fire made cozy chatter as it burned,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And reared a tent of light in that lone place.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then Jamie set about to bathe the face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With water from the spring, oft crooning low,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“It’s Jamie here beside you⁠—don’t you know?”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet came no answer save the labored breath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of one who wrestled mightily with Death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where watched no referee to call the foul.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The moon now cleared the world’s end, and the owl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gave voice unto the wizardry of light;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While in some dim-lit chancel of the night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snouts to the goddess, wolfish corybants", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Intoned their wild antiphonary chants⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The oldest, saddest worship in the world.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And Jamie watched until the firelight swirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Softly about him. Sound and glimmer merged", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To make an eerie void, through which he urged", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With frantic spur some whirlwind of a steed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That made the way as glass beneath his speed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet scarce kept pace with something dear that fled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On, ever on⁠—just half a dream ahead:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until it seemed, by some vague shape dismayed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He cried aloud for Hugh, and the steed neighed⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A neigh that was a burst of light, not sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie, sprawling on the dewy ground,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knew that his horse was sniffing at his hair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While, mumbling through the early morning air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There came a roll of many hoofs⁠—and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw the swinging troop of Henry’s men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A-canter up the valley with the sun.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Of all Hugh’s comrades crowding round, not one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But would have given heavy odds on Death;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, though the graybeard fought with sobbing breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No man, it seemed, might break upon the hip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So stern a wrestler with the strangling grip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That made the neck veins like a purple thong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tangled with knots. Nor might Hugh tarry long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There where the trail forked outward far and dim;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or so it seemed. And when they lifted him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His moan went treble like a song of pain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He was so tortured. Surely it were vain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To hope he might endure the toilsome ride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the barrens. Better let him bide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There on the grassy couch beside the spring.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, furthermore, it seemed a foolish thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That eighty men should wait the issue there;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For dying is a game of solitaire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all men play the losing hand alone.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But when at noon he had not ceased to moan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And fought still like the strong man he had been,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There grew a vague mistrust that he might win,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all this be a tale for wondering ears.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Major Henry called for volunteers,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two men among the eighty who would stay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To wait on Glass and keep the wolves away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until he did whatever he should do.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All quite agreed ’twas bitter bread for Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet none, save Jamie, felt in duty bound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To run the risk⁠—until the hat went round,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pity wakened, at the silver’s clink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Jules Le Bon.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“He would not have them think", "indent": 9 }, { "text": "That mercenary motives prompted him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But somehow just the grief of Little Jim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was quite sufficient⁠—not to mention Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He weighed the risk. As everybody knew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Rickarees were scattered to the West:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The late campaign had stirred a hornet’s nest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To fill the land with stingers (which was so),", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And yet⁠—” Three days a southwest wind may blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "False April with no drop of dew at heart.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Jules ran on, while, ready for the start,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The pawing horses nickered and the men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Impatient in their saddles, yawned. And then,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With brief advice, a round of bluff goodbyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And some few reassuring backward cries,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The troop rode up the valley with the day.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Intent upon his friend, with naught to say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sat Jamie; while Le Bon discussed at length", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The reasonable limits of man’s strength⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A self-conducted dialectic strife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That made absurd all argument for life", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And granted but a fresh-dug hole for Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas half like murder. Yet it seemed Jules knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unnumbered tales accordant with the case,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Each circumstantial as to time and place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And furnished with a death’s head colophon.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Vivaciously despondent, Jules ran on.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Did he not share his judgment with the rest?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You see, ’twas some contusion of the chest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That did the trick⁠—heart, lungs and all that, mixed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In such a way they never could be fixed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bear’s hug⁠—ugh!” And often Jamie winced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At some knife-thrust of reason that convinced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet left him sick with unrelinquished hope.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As one who in a darkened room might grope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For some belovèd face, with shuddering", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Anticipation of a clammy thing;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So in the lad’s heart sorrow fumbled round", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For some old joy to lean upon, and found", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stark, cold something Jamie knew was there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet, womanlike, he stroked the hoary hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or bathed the face; while Jules found tales to tell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lugubriously garrulous. Night fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At sundown, daylong winds are like to veer;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, summoning a mood of relished fear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Le Bon remembered dire alarms by night⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The swoop of savage hordes, the desperate fight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of men outnumbered: and, like him of old,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In all that made Jules shudder as he told,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His the great part⁠—a man by field and flood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fate-tossed. Upon the gloom he limned in blood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their situation’s possibilities:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two men against the fury of the Rees⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A game in which two hundred men had failed!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He pointed out how little it availed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To run the risk for one as good as dead;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet, Jules Le Bon meant every word he said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And had a scalp to lose, if need should be.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That night through Jamie’s dreaming swarmed the Ree.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray-souled, he wakened to a dawn of gray,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And felt that something strong had gone away,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor knew what thing. Some whisper of the will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bade him rejoice that Hugh was living still;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Hugh, the real, seemed somehow otherwhere.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules, snug and snoring in his blanket there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was half a life the nearer. Just so, pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is nearer than the peace we seek in vain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And by its very sting compels belief.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules woke, and with a fine restraint of grief", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Saw early dissolution. “One more night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then the poor old man would lose the fight⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ah, such a man!” A day and night crept by,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And yet the stubborn fighter would not die,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But grappled with the angel. All the while,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With some conviction, but with more of guile,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules colonized the vacancy with Rees;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till Jamie felt that looseness of the knees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That comes of oozing courage. Many men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May tower for a white-hot moment, when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wild blood surges at a sudden shock;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when, insistent as a ticking clock,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blind peril haunts and whispers, fewer dare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dread hovered in the hushed and moony air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The long night through; nor might a fire be lit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lest some far-seeing foe take note of it.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And daylong Jamie scanned the blank sky rim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For hoof-flung dust clouds; till there woke in him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A childish anger⁠—dumb for ruth and shame⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That Hugh so dallied. But the fourth dawn came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with it lulled the fight, as on a field", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where broken armies sleep but will not yield.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or had one conquered? Was it Hugh or Death?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old man breathed with faintly fluttering breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor did his body shudder as before.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules triumphed sadly. “It would soon be o’er;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So men grew quiet when they lost their grip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And did not care. At sundown he would slip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into the deeper silence.” Jamie wept,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unwitting how a furtive gladness crept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into his heart that gained a stronger beat.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So cities, long beleaguered, take defeat⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unto themselves half traitors. Jules began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To dig a hole that might conceal a man;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, as his sheath knife broke the stubborn sod,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He spoke in kindly vein of Life and God", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Mutability and Rectitude.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The immemorial funerary mood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brought tears, mute tribute to the mother-dust;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie, seeing, felt each cutting thrust", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Less like a stab into the flesh of Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sun crept up and down the arc of blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And through the air a chill of evening ran;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But, though the grave yawned, waiting for the man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The man seemed scarce yet ready for the grave.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now prompted by a coward or a knave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That lurked in him, Le Bon began to hear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Faint sounds that to the lad’s less cunning ear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were silence; more like tremors of the ground", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They were, Jules said, than any proper sound⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus one detected horsemen miles away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For many moments big with fate, he lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ear pressed to earth; then rose and shook his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As one perplexed. “There’s something wrong,” he said.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And⁠—as at daybreak whiten winter skies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Agape and staring with a wild surmise⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lad’s face whitened at the other’s word.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules could not quite interpret what he heard;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A hundred horse might noise their whereabouts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In just that fashion; yet he had his doubts.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It could be bison moving, quite as well.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But if ’twere Rees⁠—there’d be a tale to tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That two men he might name should never hear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He reckoned scalps that Fall were selling dear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In keeping with the limited supply.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Men, fit to live, were not afraid to die!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then, in that caution suits not courage ill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules saddled up and cantered to the hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A white dam set against the twilight stream;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And as a horseman riding in a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lad beheld him; watched him clamber up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where the dusk, as from a brimming cup,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran over; saw him pause against the gloom,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Portentous, huge⁠—a brooder upon doom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What did he look upon? Some moments passed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then suddenly it seemed as though a blast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wind, keen-cutting with the whips of sleet,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Smote horse and rider. Haunched on huddled feet,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The steed shrank from the ridge, then, rearing, wheeled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And took the rubbly incline fury-heeled.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Those days and nights, like seasons creeping slow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had told on Jamie. Better blow on blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of evil hap, with doom seen clear ahead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than that monotonous, abrasive dread,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blind gnawer at the soul-thews of the blind.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thin-worn, the last heart-string that held him kind;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strung taut, the final tie that kept him true", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now snapped in Jamie, as he saw the two", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So goaded by some terrifying sight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Death riding with the vanguard of the Night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Life dwindling yonder with the rear of Day!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What choice for one whom panic swept away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From moorings in the sanity of will?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Jules came and summed the vision of the hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In one hoarse cry that left no word to say:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Rees! Saddle up! We’ve got to get away!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Small wit had Jamie left to ferret guile,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But fumblingly obeyed Le Bon; the while", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jules knelt beside the man who could not flee:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For big hearts lack not time for charity", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "However thick the blows of fate may fall.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet, in that Jules Le Bon was practical,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He could not quite ignore a hunting knife,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A flint, a gun, a blanket⁠—gear of life", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce suited to the customs of the dead!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And Hugh slept soundly in his ample bed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Star-canopied and blanketed with night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unwitting how Venality and Fright", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made hot the westward trail of Henry’s men.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No one may say what time elapsed, or when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The slumberous shadow lifted over Hugh:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But some globose immensity of blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Enfolded him at last, within whose light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed to float, as some faint swimmer might,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A deep beneath and overhead a deep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So one late plunged into the lethal sleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A spirit diver fighting for his breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swoops through the many-fathomed glooms of death,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Emerging in a daylight strange and new.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Rousing a languid wonder, came on Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The quiet, steep-arched splendor of the day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Agrope for some dim memory, he lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon his back, and watched a lucent fleece", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fade in the blue profundity of peace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As did the memory he sought in vain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then with a stirring of mysterious pain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Old habit of the body bade him rise;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when he would obey, the hollow skies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Broke as a bubble punctured, and went out.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Again he woke, and with a drowsy doubt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remote unto his horizontal gaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw the world’s end kindle to a blaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And up the smoky steep pale heralds run.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when at length he knew it for the sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dawn found the darkling reaches of his mind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where in the twilight he began to find", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strewn shards and torsos of familiar things.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As from the rubble in a place of kings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Men school the dream to build the past anew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So out of dream and fragment builded Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And came upon the reason of his plight:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bear’s attack⁠—the shot⁠—and then the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein men talked as ghosts above a grave.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Some consciousness of will the memory gave:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He would get up. The painful effort spent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made the wide heavens billow as a tent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wind-struck, the shaken prairie sag and roll.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some moments with an effort at control", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He swayed, half raised upon his arms, until", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dizzy cosmos righted, and was still.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then would he stand erect and be again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The man he was: an overwhelming pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Smote him to earth, and one unruly limb", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Refused the weight and crumpled under him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Sickened with torture he lay huddled there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gazing about him with a great despair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Proportioned to the might that felt the chain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far-flung as dawn, collusive sky and plain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stared bleak denial back. Why strive at all?⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That vacancy about him like a wall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yielding as light, a granite scarp to climb!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some little waiting on the creep of time,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Abandonment to circumstance; and then⁠—", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Here flashed a sudden thought of Henry’s men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into his mind and drove the gloom away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They would be riding westward with the day!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How strange he had forgot! That battered leg", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or some scalp wound, had set his wits a-beg!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was this Hugh Glass to whimper like a squaw?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grimly amused, he raised his head and saw⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The empty distance: listened long and heard⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Naught but the twitter of a lonely bird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That emphasized the hush. Was something wrong?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas not the Major’s way to dally long,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And surely they had camped not far behind.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now woke a query in his troubled mind⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where was his horse? Again came creeping back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The circumstances of the bear’s attack.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He had dismounted, thinking at the spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To spend the night⁠—and then the grisly thing⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of course the horse had bolted; plain enough!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But why was all the soil about so rough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though a herd of horses had been there?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The riddle vexed him till his vacant stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fell on a heap of earth beside a pit.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What did that mean? He wormed his way to it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The newly wakened wonder dulling pain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No paw of beast had scooped it⁠—that was plain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas squared; indeed, ’twas like a grave, he thought.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A grave⁠—a grave⁠—the mental echo wrought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sick fancies! Who had risen from the dead?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who, lying there, had heard above his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ghostly talkers deaf unto his shout?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now searching all the region round about,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though the answer were a lurking thing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw along the margin of the spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An ash-heap and the litter of a camp.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Suspicion, like a little smoky lamp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That daubs the murk but cannot fathom it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flung blear grotesques before his groping wit.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had Rees been there? And he alive? Who then?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And were he dead, it might be Henry’s men!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How many suns had risen while he slept?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The smoky glow flared wildly, and he crept,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dragged limb throbbing, till at length he found", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trail of many horses westward bound;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in one breath the groping light became", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gloom-devouring ecstasy of flame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A dazing conflagration of belief!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Plunged deeper than the seats of hate and grief,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He gazed about for aught that might deny", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Such baseness: saw the non-committal sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The prairie apathetic in a shroud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bland complacence of a vagrant cloud⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Worldwide connivance! Smilingly the sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Approved a land wherein such deeds were done;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And careless breezes, like a troop of youth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unawed before the presence of such truth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went scampering amid the tousled brush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then bye and bye came on him with a rush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His weakness and the consciousness of pain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While, with the chill insistence of a rain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That pelts the sodden wreck of Summer’s end,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His manifest betrayal by a friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beat in upon him. Jamie had been there;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie⁠—Jamie⁠—Jamie did not care!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What no man yet had witnessed, the wide sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Looked down and saw; a light wind idling by", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Heard what no ear of mortal yet had heard:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For he⁠—whose name was like a magic word", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To conjure the remote heroic mood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of valiant deed and splendid fortitude,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherever two that shared a fire might be⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gave way to grief and wept unmanfully.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet not as they for whom tears fall like dew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To green a frosted heart again, wept Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So thewed to strive, so engined to prevail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And make harsh fate the zany of a tale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His own might shook and tore him. For a span", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He lay, a gray old ruin of a man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With all his years upon him like a snow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then at length, as from the long ago,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remote beyond the other side of wrong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old love came like some remembered song", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereof the strain is sweet, the burden sad.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A retrospective vision of the lad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grew up in him, as in a foggy night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The witchery of semilunar light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mysteriously quickens all the air.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some memory of wind-blown golden hair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The boyish laugh, the merry eyes of blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wrought marvelously in the heart of Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As under snow the daemon of the Spring.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And momently it seemed a little thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To suffer; nor might treachery recall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The miracle of being loved at all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The privilege of loving to the end.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thereupon a longing for his friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made life once more a struggle for a prize⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To look again upon the merry eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see again the wind-blown golden hair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, one should lavish very tender care", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the vessel of a hope so great,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lest it be shattered, and the precious freight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As water on the arid waste, poured out.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet, though he longed to live, a subtle doubt", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still turned on him the weapon of his pain:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now, as before, collusive sky and plain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Outstared his purpose for a puny thing.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Praying to live, he crawled back to the spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With something in his heart like gratitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That by good luck his gun might furnish food,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His blanket, shelter, and his flint, a fire.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, after all, what thing do men desire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To be or have, but these condition it?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These with a purpose and a little wit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And howsoever smitten, one might rise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Push back the curtain of the curving skies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And come upon the living dream at last.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Exhausted, by the spring he lay and cast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dull eyes about him. What did it portend?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Naught but the footprints of a fickle friend,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A yawning grave and ashes met his eyes!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce feeling yet the shock of a surprise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He searched about him for his flint and knife;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knew vaguely that his seeking was for life,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that the place was empty where he sought.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No food, no fire, no shelter! Dully wrought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bleak negation in him, slowly crept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where, despite the pain, his love had kept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A shrine for Jamie undefiled of doubt.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then suddenly conviction, like a shout,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aroused him. Jamie⁠—Jamie was a thief!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The very difficulty of belief", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was fuel for the simmering of rage;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That grew and grew, the more he strove to gage", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The underlying motive of the deed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Untempered youth might fail a friend in need;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But here had wrought some devil of the will,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some heartless thing, too cowardly to kill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That left to Nature what it dared not do!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So bellowsed, all the kindled soul of Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Became a still white hell of brooding ire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And through his veins regenerating fire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran, driving out the lethargy of pain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now once again he scanned the yellow plain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Conspirant with the overbending skies;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lo, the one was blue as Jamie’s eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The other of the color of his hair⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Twin hues of falseness merging to a stare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though such guilt, thus visibly immense,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Regarded its effect with insolence!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alas for those who fondly place above", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The act of loving, what they chance to love;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who prize the goal more dearly than the way!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For time shall plunder them, and change betray,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And life shall find them vulnerable still.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A bitter-sweet narcotic to the will,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh’s love increased the peril of his plight;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But anger broke the slumber of his might,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quickened the heart and warmed the blood that ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Defiance for the treachery of Man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Defiance for the meaning of his pain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Defiance for the distance of the plain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That seemed to gloat, “You can not master me.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for one burning moment he felt free", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To rise and conquer in a wind of rage.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But as a tiger, conscious of the cage,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A-smoulder with a purpose, broods and waits,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So with the sullen patience that is hate’s", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh taught his wrath to bide expedience.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now cognizant of every quickened sense,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thirst came upon him. Leaning to the spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He stared with fascination on a thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That rose from giddy deeps to share the draught⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A face, it was, so tortured that it laughed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ghastly mask that Murder well might wear;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And while as one they drank together there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It was as though the deed he meant to do", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Took shape and came to kiss the lips of Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lest that revenge might falter. Hunger woke;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And from the bush with leafage gray as smoke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein like flame the bullberries glinted red", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Scarce sweeter than the heart of him they fed),", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh feasted. And the hours of waiting crept,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A-gloom, a-glow; and though he waked or slept,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The pondered purpose or a dream that wrought,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By night, the murder of his waking thought,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sustained him till he felt his strength returned.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then at length the longed-for morning burned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And beckoned down the vast way he should crawl⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That waste to be surmounted as a wall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sky-rims and yet more sky-rims steep to climb⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That simulacrum of enduring Time⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hundred empty miles ’twixt him and where", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stark Missouri ran! Yet why not dare?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Despite the useless leg, he could not die", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One hairsbreadth farther from the earth and sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or more remote from kindness.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Straight away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the flare of dawn, the Ree land lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And through it ran the short trail to the goal.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thereon a grim turnpikeman waited toll:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But ’twas so doomed that southering geese should flee", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nine times, ere yet the vengeance of the Ree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should make their foe the haunter of a tale.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Midway to safety on the northern trail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The scoriac region of a hell burned black", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forbade the crawler. And for all his lack,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh had no heart to journey with the suns:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No suppliant unto those faithless ones", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should bid for pity at the Big Horn’s mouth.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The greater odds for safety in the South", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Allured him; so he felt the midday sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blaze down the coulee of a little run", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That dwindled upward to the watershed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereon the feeders of the Moreau head⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce more than deep-carved runes of vernal rain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trailing leg was like a galling chain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bound him to a doubt that would not pass.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Defiant clumps of thirst-embittered grass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That bit parched earth with bared and fang-like roots;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dwarf thickets, jealous for their stunted fruits,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Harsh-tempered by their disinheritance⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These symbolized the enmity of Chance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For him who, with his fate unreconciled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Equipped for travel as a weanling child,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Essayed the journey of a mighty man.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Like agitated oil the heat-waves ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And made the scabrous gulch appear to shake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As some reflected landscape in a lake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where laggard breezes move. A taunting reek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose from the grudging seepage of the creek,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereof Hugh drank and drank, and still would drink.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where the mottled shadow dripped as ink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From scanty thickets on the yellow glare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crawler faltered with no heart to dare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Again the torture of that toil, until", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The master-thought of vengeance ’woke the will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To goad him forth. And when the sun quiesced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid ironic heavens in the West⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The region of false friends⁠—Hugh gained a rise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whence to the fading cincture of the skies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A purpling panorama swept away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce farther than a shout might carry, lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The place of his betrayal. He could see", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The yellow blotch of earth where treachery", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had digged his grave. O futile wrath and toil!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tucked in beneath yon coverlet of soil,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Turned back for him, how soundly had he slept!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fool, fool! to struggle when he might have crept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So short a space, yet farther than the flight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of swiftest dreaming through the longest night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into the quiet house of no false friend.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alas for those who seek a journey’s end⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They have it ever with them like a ghost:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor shall they find, who deem they seek it most,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But crave the end of human ends⁠—as Hugh.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now swoopingly the world of dream broke through", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The figured wall of sense. It seemed he ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As wind above the creeping ways of man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And came upon the place of his desire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where burned, far-luring as a beacon-fire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The face of Jamie. But the vengeful stroke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bit air. The darkness lifted like a smoke⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And it was early morning. Gazing far,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where the West yet kept a pallid star", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To thinner sky where dawn was wearing through,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh shrank with dread, reluctant to renew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The war with that serene antagonist.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "More fearsome than a smashing iron fist", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed that vast negativity of might;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the frustrate vision of the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came moonwise on the gloom of his despair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lo, the foe was naught but yielding air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A vacancy to fill with his intent!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So from his spacious bed he ’rose and went", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three-footed; and the vision goaded him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All morning southward to the bare sky rim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rugged coulee zigzagged, mounting slow;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever as it ’rose, the lean creek’s flow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dwindled and dwindled steadily, until", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At last a scooped-out basin would not fill;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thenceforth ’twas a way of mocking dust.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But, in that Hugh still kept the driving lust", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For vengeance, this new circumstance of fate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Served but to brew more venom for his hate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nerved him to avail the most with least.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ere noon the crawler chanced upon a feast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of breadroot sunning in a favored draw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sentry gopher from his stronghold saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some three-legged beast, bear-like, yet not a bear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With quite misguided fury digging where", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No hapless brother gopher might be found.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And while, with stripèd nose above his mound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sentinel chirped shrilly to his clan", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scare-tales of that anomaly, the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Devoured the chance-flung manna of the plains", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That some vague reminiscence of old rains", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Kept succulent, despite the burning drouth.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So with new vigor Hugh assailed the South,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His pockets laden with the precious roots", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against that coming traverse, where no fruits", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of herb or vine or shrub might brave the land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spread rooflike ’twixt the Moreau and the Grand.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The coulee deepened; yellow walls flung high,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sheer to the ragged strip of blinding sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dazzled and sweltered in the glare of day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Capricious draughts that woke and died away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into the heavy drowse, were breatht as flame.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And midway down the afternoon, Hugh came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a little patch of spongy ground.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His thirst became a rage. He gazed around,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seeking a spring; but all about was dry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As strewn bones bleaching to a desert sky;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor did a clawed hole, bought with needed strength,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Return a grateful ooze. And when at length", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh sucked the mud, he spat it in disgust.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It had the acrid tang of broken trust,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sweetish, tepid taste of feigning love!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Still hopeful of a spring somewhere above,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He crawled the faster for his taunted thirst.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "More damp spots, no less grudging than the first,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Occurred with growing frequence on the way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until amid the purple wane of day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crawler came upon a little pool!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clear as a friend’s heart, ’twas, and seeming cool⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A crystal bowl whence skyey deeps looked up.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So might a god set down his drinking cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Charged with a distillation of haut skies.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As famished horses, thrusting to the eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Parched muzzles, take a long-sought water-hole,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh plunged his head into the brimming bowl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though to share the joy with every sense.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lo, the tang of that wide insolence", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sky and plain was acrid in the draught!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How ripplingly the lying water laughed!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How like fine sentiment the mirrored sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Won credence for a sink of alkali!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So with false friends. And yet, as may accrue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From specious love some profit of the true,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One gift of kindness had the tainted sink.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stripped of his clothes, Hugh let his body drink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At every thirsting pore. Through trunk and limb", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The elemental blessing solaced him;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor did he rise till, vague with stellar light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lone gulch, buttressing an arch of night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like a temple to the Holy Ghost.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As priests in slow procession with the Host,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gusty breeze intoned⁠—now low, now loud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now, as to the murmur of a crowd,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yielding the dim-torched wonder of the nave.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aloft along the dusky architrave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wander-tale of drifting stars evolved;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Hugh lay gazing till the whole resolved", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into a haze. It seemed that Little Jim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had come to share a merry fire with him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there had been no trouble ’twixt the two.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Jamie listened eagerly while Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Essayed a tangled tale of bears and men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Breadroot and stars. But ever now and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The shifting smoke-cloud dimmed the golden hair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The leal blue eyes; until with sudden flare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The flame effaced them utterly⁠—and lo,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gulch bank-full with morning! Loath to go,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh lay beside the pool and pondered fate.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw his age-long pilgrimage of hate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stretch out⁠—a fool’s trail; and it made him cringe;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For still amid the nightly vision’s fringe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His dull wit strayed, companioned with regret.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when the sun, a tilted cauldron set", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the gulch rim, poured a blaze of day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He rose and bathed again, and went his way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sustaining wrath returning with the toil.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At noon the gulch walls, hewn in lighter soil,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fell back; and coulees dense with shrub and vine", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Climbed zigzag to the sharp horizon line,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whence one might choose the pilotage of crows.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He labored upward through the noonday doze.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of breathless shade, where plums were turning red", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In tangled bowers, and grapevines overhead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Purpled with fruit to taunt the crawler’s thirst.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With little effort Hugh attained the first;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The latter bargained sharply ere they sold", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their luscious clusters for the hoarded gold", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of strength that had so very much to buy.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now, having feasted, it was sweet to lie", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath a sun-proof canopy; and sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came swiftly. Hugh awakened to some deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Star-snuffing well of night. Awhile he lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wondered what had happened to the day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where he was and what were best to do.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when, fog-like, the drowse dispersed, he knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How from the rim above the plain stretched far", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where the evening and the morning are,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that ’twere better he should crawl by night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sleep out the glare. With groping hands for sight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Skyward along the broken steep he crawled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw at length, immense and purple-walled⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or sensed⁠—the dusky mystery of plain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gazing aloft, he found the capsized Wain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In mid-plunge down the polar steep. Thereto", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He set his back; and far ahead there grew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As some pale blossom from a darkling root,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The star-blanched summit of a lonely butte,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thitherward he dragged his heavy limb.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It seemed naught moved. Time hovered over him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An instant of incipient endeavor.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas ever thus, and should be thus forever⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This groping for the same armful of space,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An insubstantial essence of one place,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Extentless on a weird frontier of sleep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sheer deep upon unfathomable deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The flood of dusk bore down without a sound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As ocean on the spirits of the drowned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Awakened headlong leagues beneath the light.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So lapsed the drowsy aeon of the night⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A strangely tensile moment in a trance.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then, as quickened to somnambulance,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The heavens, imperceptibly in motion,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were altered as the upward deeps of ocean", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Diluted with a seepage of the moon.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The butte-top, late a gossamer balloon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In mid-air tethered hovering, grew down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rooted in a blear expanse of brown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That, lifting slowly with the ebb of night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Took on the harsh solidity of light⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And day was on the prairie like a flame.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Scarce had he munched the hoarded roots, when came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A vertigo of slumber. Snatchy dreams", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sick pools, inaccessible cool streams,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lured on through giddy vacancies of heat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In swooping flights; now hills of roasting meat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made savory the oven of the world,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet kept remote peripheries and whirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About a burning center that was Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then all were gone, save one, and it turned blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And was a heap of cool and luscious fruit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until at length he knew it for the butte", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now mantled with a weaving of the gloam.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It was the hour when cattle straggle home.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Across the clearing in a hush of sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They saunter, lowing; loiter belly-deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the lush grass by the meadow stream.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How like the sound of water in a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The intermittent tinkle of yon bell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A windlass creaks contentment from a well,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And cool deeps gurgle as the bucket sinks.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now blowing at the trough the plow-team drinks;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The shaken harness rattles. Sleepy quails", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Call far. The warm milk hisses in the pails", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There in the dusky barn-lot. Crickets cry.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The meadow twinkles with the glowing fly.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One hears the horses munching at their oats.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The green grows black. A veil of slumber floats", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the haunts of home-enamored men.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Some freak of memory brought back again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The boyhood world of sight and scent and sound:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It perished, and the prairie ringed him round,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blank as the face of fate. In listless mood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh set his face against the solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And met the night. The new moon, low and far,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A frail cup tilted, nor the high-swung star,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed, might glint on any stream or spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or touch with silver any toothsome thing.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The kiote voiced the universal lack.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As from a nether fire, the plain gave back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The swelter of the noon-glare to the gloom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the hot hush Hugh heard his temples boom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thirst tortured. Motion was a languid pain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why seek some further nowhere on the plain?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here might the kiotes feast as well as there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So spoke some loose-lipped spirit of despair;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still Hugh moved, volitionless⁠—a weight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Submissive to that now unconscious hate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As darkling water to the hidden moon.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now when the night wore on in middle swoon,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The crawler, roused from stupor, was aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of some strange alteration in the air.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To breathe became an act of conscious will.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The starry waste was ominously still.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The far-off kiote’s yelp came sharp and clear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As through a tunnel in the atmosphere⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ponderable, resonating mass.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The limp leg dragging on the sun-dried grass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Produced a sound unnaturally loud.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Crouched, panting, Hugh looked up but saw no cloud.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An oily film seemed spread upon the sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now dully staring as the open eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of one in fever. Gasping, choked with thirst,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A childish rage assailed Hugh, and he cursed:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas like a broken spirit’s outcry, tossed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon hell’s burlesque sabbath for the lost,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And briefly space seemed crowded with the voice.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "To wait and die, to move and die⁠—what choice?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh chose not, yet he crawled; though more and more", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He felt the futile strife was nearly o’er.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And as he went, a muffled rumbling grew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "More felt than heard; for long it puzzled Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Somehow ’twas coextensive with his thirst,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet boundless; swollen blood-veins ere they burst", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might give such warning, so he thought. And still", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The drone seemed heaping up a phonic hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That towered in a listening profound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then suddenly a mountain peak of sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came toppling to a heaven-jolting fall!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The prairie shuddered, and a raucous drawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran far and perished in the outer deep.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "As one too roughly shaken out of sleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh stared bewildered. Still the face of night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remained the same, save where upon his right", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The moon had vanished ’neath the prairie rim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then suddenly the meaning came to him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He turned and saw athwart the northwest sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some black eyelid shutting on an eye,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A coming night to which the night was day!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Star-hungry, ranged in regular array,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lifting mass assailed the Dragon’s lair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Submerged the region of the hounded Bear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out-topped the tall Ox-Driver and the Pole.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all the while there came a low-toned roll,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Less sound in air than tremor in the earth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where, like flame upon a windy hearth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deep in the further murk sheet-lightning flared.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still the southern arc of heaven stared,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A half-shut eye, near blind with fever rheum;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still the plain lay tranquil as a tomb", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein the dead reck not a menaced world.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What turmoil now? Lo, ragged columns hurled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pell-mell up stellar slopes! Swift blue fires leap", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the wild assailants of the steep!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the solid rear a dull boom runs!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So light horse squadrons charge beneath the guns.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now once again the night is deathly still.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What ghastly peace upon the zenith hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No longer starry? Not a sound is heard.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So poised the hush, it seems a whispered word", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might loose all noises in an avalanche.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Only the black mass moves, and far glooms blanch", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With fitful flashes. The capricious flare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Reveals the butte-top tall and lonely there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some gray prophet contemplating doom.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But hark! What spirits whisper in the gloom?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What sibilation of conspiracies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ruffles the hush⁠—or murmuring of trees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ghosts of the ancient forest⁠—or old rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In some hallucination of the plain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A frustrate phantom mourning? All around,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That e’er evolving, ne’er resolving sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gropes in the stifling hollow of the night.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then⁠—once⁠—twice⁠—thrice⁠—a blade of blinding light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ripped up the heavens, and the deluge came⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A burst of wind and water, noise and flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That hurled the watcher flat upon the ground.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A moment past Hugh famished; now, half drowned,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He gasped for breath amid the hurtling drench.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So might a testy god, long sought to quench", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A puny thirst, pour wassail, hurling after", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crashing bowl with wild sardonic laughter", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see man wrestle with his answered prayer!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Prone to the roaring flaw and ceaseless flare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The man drank deeply with the drinking grass;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until it seemed the storm would never pass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But ravin down the painted murk for aye.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When had what dreamer seen a glaring day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And leagues of prairie pantingly aquiver?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flame, flood, wind, noise and darkness were a river", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tearing a cosmic channel to no sea.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The tortured night wore on; then suddenly", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Peace fell. Remotely the retreating Wrath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Trailed dull, reluctant thunders in its path,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And up along a broken stair of cloud", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Dawn came creeping whitely. Like a shroud", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray vapors clung along the sodden plain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Up rose the sun to wipe the final stain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of fury from the sky and drink the mist.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against a flawless arch of amethyst", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The butte soared, like a soul serene and white", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because of the katharsis of the night.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All day Hugh fought with sleep and struggled on", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Southeastward; for the heavy heat was gone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Despite the naked sun. The blank Northwest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Breathed coolly; and the crawler thought it best", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To move while yet each little break and hollow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And shallow basin of the bison-wallow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Begrudged the earth and air its dwindling store.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But now that thirst was conquered, more and more", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He felt the gnaw of hunger like a rage.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And once, from dozing in a clump of sage,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A lone jackrabbit bounded. As a flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hope flared in Hugh, until the memory came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of him who robbed a sleeping friend and fled.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then hate and hunger merged; the man saw red,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And momently the hare and Little Jim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were one blurred mark for murder unto him⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Elusive, taunting, sweet to clutch and tear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rabbit paused to scan the crippled bear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That ground its teeth as though it chewed a root.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when, in witless rage, Hugh drew his boot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hurled it with a curse, the hare loped off,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Its critic ears turned back, as though to scoff", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At silly brutes that threw their legs away.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Night like a shadow on enduring day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swooped by. The dream of crawling and the act", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were phases of one everlasting fact:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh woke, and he was doing what he dreamed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The butte, outstripped at eventide, now seemed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Intent to follow. Ever now and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crawler paused to calculate again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What dear-bought yawn of distance dwarfed the hill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Close in the rear it soared, a Titan still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose hand-in-pocket saunter kept the pace.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Distinct along the southern rim of space", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A low ridge lay, the crest of the divide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What rest and plenty on the other side!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through what lush valleys ran what crystal brooks!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there in virgin meadows wayside nooks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With leaf and purple cluster dulled the light!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All day it seemed that distant Pisgah Height", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Retreated, and the tall butte dogged the rear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At eve a stripèd gopher chirping near", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gave Hugh an inspiration. Now, at least,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No thieving friend should rob him of a feast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His great idea stirred him as a shout.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Off came a boot, a sock was ravelled out.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The coarse yarn, fashioned to a running snare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He placed about the gopher’s hole with care,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then withdrew to hold the yarn and wait.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The night-bound moments, ponderous with fate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Crept slowly by. The battered gray face leered", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In expectation. Down the grizzled beard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran slaver from anticipating jaws.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Evolving twilight hovered to a pause.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The light wind fell. Again and yet again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The man devoured his fancied prey: and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Within the noose a timid snout was thrust.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His hand unsteadied with the hunger lust,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh jerked the yarn. It broke.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Down swooped the night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A shadow of despair. Bleak height on height,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed, a sheer abyss enclosed him round.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clutching a strand of yarn, he heard the sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of some infernal turmoil under him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grimly he strove to reach the ragged rim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That snared a star, until the skyey space", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was darkened with a roof of Jamie’s face,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then the yarn was broken, and he fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A-tumble like a stricken bat, his yell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Woke hordes of laughers down the giddy yawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of that black pit⁠—and suddenly ’twas dawn.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Dream-dawn, dream-noon, dream-twilight! Yet, possest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By one stern dream more clamorous than the rest,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh headed for a gap that notched the hills,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherethrough a luring murmur of cool rills,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A haunting smell of verdure seemed to creep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By fits the wild adventure of his sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Became the cause of all his waking care,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he complained unto the empty air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How Jamie broke the yarn.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The sun and breeze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had drunk all shallow basins to the lees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But now and then some gully, choked with mud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Retained a turbid relict of the flood.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dream-dawn, dream-noon, dream-night! And still obsessed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By that one dream more clamorous than the rest,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh struggled for the crest of the divide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when at length he saw the other side,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas but a rumpled waste of yellow hills!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The deep-sunk, wiser self had known the rills", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nooks to be the facture of a whim;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet had the pleasant lie befriended him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the brutal fact had come to stare.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Succumbing to a languorous despair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He mourned his fate with childish uncontrol", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nursed that deadly adder of the soul,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Self-pity. Let the crows swoop down and feed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, batten on a thing that died of need,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A poor old wretch betrayed of God and Man!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So peevishly his broken musing ran,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till, glutted with the luxury of woe,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He turned to see the butte, that he might know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How little all his striving could avail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against ill-luck. And lo, a finger-nail,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At arm-length held, could blot it out of space!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A goading purpose and a creeping pace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had dwarfed the Titan in a haze of blue!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And suddenly new power came to Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With gazing on his masterpiece of will.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So fare the wise on Pisgah.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Down the hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unto the higher vision consecrate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now sallied forth the new triumvirate⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A Weariness, a Hunger and a Glory⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against tyrannic Chance. As in a story", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some higher Hugh observed the baser part.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So sits the artist throned above his art,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor recks the travail so the end be fair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed the wrinkled hills pressed in to stare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The arch of heaven was an eye a-gaze.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And as Hugh went, he fashioned many a phrase", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For use when, by some friendly ember-light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His tale of things endured should speed the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all this gloom grow golden in the sharing.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So wrought the old evangel of high daring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The duty and the beauty of endeavor,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The privilege of going on forever,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A victor in the moment. Ah, but when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The night slipped by and morning came again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sky and hill were only sky and hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And crawling but an agony of will.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So once again the old triumvirate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A buzzard Hunger and a viper Hate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Together with the baser part of Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went visionless. That day the wild geese flew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Vague in a gray profundity of sky;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And on into the night their muffled cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Haunted the moonlight like a far farewell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It made Hugh homesick, though he could not tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For what he yearned; and in his fitful sleeping", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The cry became the sound of Jamie weeping,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Immeasurably distant. Morning broke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blear, chilly, through a fog that drove as smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the booming Northwest. Sweet and sad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came creeping back old visions of the lad⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some trick of speech, some merry little lilt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The brooding blue of eyes too clear for guilt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wind-blown golden hair. Hate slept that day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And half of Hugh was half a life away,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wandering spirit wistful of the past;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And half went drifting with the autumn blast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That mourned among the melancholy hills;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For something of the lethargy that kills", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came creeping close upon the ebb of hate.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Only the raw wind, like the lash of Fate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could have availed to move him any more.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At last the buzzard beak no longer tore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His vitals, and he ceased to think of food.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fighter slumbered, and a maudlin mood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Foretold the dissolution of the man.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He sobbed, and down his beard the big tears ran.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the scene is changed; the bleak wind’s cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Becomes a flight of bullets snarling by", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where on yonder summit skulk the Rees.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the sky, in silhouette, he sees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The headstrong Jamie in the leaden rain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now serenely beautiful and slain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dear lad lies within a gusty tent.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus vexed with doleful whims the crawler went", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Adrift before the wind, nor saw the trail;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till close on night he knew a rugged vale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had closed about him; and a hush was there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though still a moaning in the upper air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Told how the gray-winged gale blew out the day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath a clump of brush he swooned away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into an icy void; and waking numb,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed the still white dawn of death had come", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On this, some cradle-valley of the soul.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw a dim, enchanted hollow roll", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath him, and the brush thereof was fleece;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like the body of the perfect peace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That thralled the whole, abode the break of day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed no wind had ever come that way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor sound dwelt there, nor echo found the place.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Hugh lay lapped in wonderment a space,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Vexed with a snarl whereof the ends were lost,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till, shivering, he wondered if a frost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had fallen with the dying of the blast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, vaguely troubled, listlessly he cast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gaze about him: lo, above his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gray-green curtain of his chilly bed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was broidered thick with plums! Or so it seemed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For he was half persuaded that he dreamed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with a steady stare he strove to keep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That treasure for the other side of sleep.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Returning hunger bade him rise; in vain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He struggled with a fine-spun mesh of pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That trammelled him, until a yellow stream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of day flowed down the white vale of a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And left it disenchanted in the glare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then, warmed and soothed, Hugh rose and feasted there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thought once more of reaching the Moreau.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "To southward with a painful pace and slow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He went stiff-jointed; and a gnawing ache", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In that hip-wound he had for Jamie’s sake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Oft made him groan⁠—nor wrought a tender mood:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rankling weapon of ingratitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was turned again with every puckering twinge.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Far down the vale a narrow winding fringe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wilted green betokened how a spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There sent a little rill meandering;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Hugh was greatly heartened, for he knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What fruits and herbs might flourish in the slough,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thirst, henceforth, should torture not again.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So day on day, despite the crawler’s pain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All in the windless, golden autumn weather,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These two, as comrades, struggled south together⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The homeless graybeard and the homing rill:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And one was sullen with the lust to kill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And one went crooning of the moon-wooed vast;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For each the many-fathomed peace at last,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But oh the boon of singing on the way!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So came these in the golden fall of day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unto a sudden turn in the ravine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherefrom Hugh saw a flat of cluttered green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the further bluffs of the Moreau.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "With sinking heart he paused and gazed below", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the goal of so much toil and pain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yon green had seemed a paradise to gain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The while he thirsted where the lonely butte", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Looked far and saw no toothsome herb or fruit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In all that yellow barren dim with heat.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But now the wasting body cried for meat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sickness was upon him. Game should pass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor deign to fear the mighty hunter Glass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But curiously sniffing, pause to stare.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now while thus musing, Hugh became aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of some low murmur, phasic and profound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce risen o’er the border line of sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It might have been the coursing of his blood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or thunder heard remotely, or a flood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flung down a wooded valley far away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet that had been no weather-breeding day;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twould frost that night; amid the thirsty land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All streams ran thin; and when he pressed a hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On either ear, the world seemed very still.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The deep-worn channel of the little rill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here fell away to eastward, rising, rough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With old rain-furrows, to a lofty bluff", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That faced the river with a yellow wall.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thereto, perplexed, Hugh set about to crawl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor reached the summit till the sun was low.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far-spread, shade-dimpled in the level glow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The still land told not whence the murmur grew;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But where the green strip melted into blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far down the winding valley of the stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh saw what seemed the tempest of a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At mimic havoc in the timber-glooms.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As from the sweeping of gigantic brooms,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A dust cloud deepened down the dwindling river;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the distant tree-tops ran a shiver", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And huddled thickets writhed as in a gale.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "On creeps the windless tempest up the vale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The while the murmur deepens to a roar,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with the wider yawning of a door.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the agitated green gloom gapes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To belch a flood of countless dusky shapes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That mill and wrangle in a turbid flow⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Migrating myriads of the buffalo", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bound for the winter pastures of the Platte!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Exhausted, faint with need of meat, Hugh sat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And watched the mounting of the living flood.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Down came the night, and like a blot of blood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lopped moon weltered in the dust-bleared East.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sleep came and gave a Barmecidal feast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About a merry flame were simmering", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sweet haunches of the calving of the Spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tender tongues that never tasted snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And marrow bones that yielded to a blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Such treasure! Hugh awoke with gnashing teeth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And heard the mooing drone of cows beneath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The roll of hoofs, the challenge of the bull.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So sounds a freshet when the banks are full", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bursting brush-jams bellow to the croon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of water through green leaves. The ragged moon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now drenched the valley in an eerie rain:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Below, the semblance of a hurricane;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above, the perfect calm of brooding frost,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through which the wolves in doleful tenson tossed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From hill to hill the ancient hunger-song.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In broken sleep Hugh rolled the chill night long,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half conscious of the flowing flesh below.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now he trailed a bison in the snow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That deepened till he could not lift his feet.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Again, he battled for a chunk of meat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With some gray beast that fought with icy fang.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when he woke, the wolves no longer sang;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White dawn athwart a white world smote the hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thunder rolled along the valley still.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Morn, wiping up the frost as with a sponge,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Day on the steep and down the nightward plunge,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Twilight saw the myriads moving on.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dust to the westward where the van had gone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dust and muffled thunder in the east!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh starved while gazing on a Titan feast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tons of beef, that eddied there and swirled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had stilled the crying hungers of the world,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet not one little morsel was for him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The red sun, pausing on the dusty rim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Induced a panic aspect of his plight:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The herd would pass and vanish in the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And be another dream to cling and flout.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now scanning all the summit round about,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the rubble of the ancient drift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw a boulder. ’Twas too big to lift,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet he might roll it. Painfully and slow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He worked it to the edge, then let it go", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And breathlessly expectant watched it fall.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It hurtled down the leaning yellow wall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bounding from a brushy ledge’s brow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It barely grazed the buttocks of a cow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And made a moment’s eddy where it struck.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "In peevish wrath Hugh cursed his evil luck,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And seizing rubble, gave his fury vent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By pelting bison till his strength was spent:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So might a child assail the crowding sea!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then, sick at heart and musing bitterly,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He shambled down the steep way to the creek,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And having stayed the tearing buzzard beak", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With breadroot and the waters of the rill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slept till the white of morning o’er the hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like a whisper groping in a hush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stream’s low trill seemed loud. The tumbled brush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rumpled tree-tops in the flat below,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a fog that clung like spectral snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lay motionless; nor any sound was there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No frost had fallen, but the crystal air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Smacked of the autumn, and a heavy dew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lay hoar upon the grass. There came on Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A picture, vivid in the moment’s thrill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of martialed corn-shocks marching up a hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And spiked fields dotted with the pumpkin’s gold.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It vanished; and, a-shiver with the cold,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He brooded on the mockeries of Chance,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The shrewd malignity of Circumstance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That either gave too little or too much.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet, with the fragment of a hope for crutch,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His spirit rallied, and he rose to go,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though each stiff joint resisted as a foe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that old hip-wound battled with his will.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So down along the channel of the rill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unto the vale below he fought his way.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The frore fog, rifting in the risen day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Revealed the havoc of the living flood⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The river shallows beaten into mud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The slender saplings shattered in the crush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All lower leafage stripped, the tousled brush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Despoiled of fruitage, winter-thin, aghast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where the avalanche of hoofs had passed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed nor herb nor grass had ever been.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And this the hard-won paradise, wherein", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A food-devouring plethora of food", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had come to make a starving solitude!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet hope and courage mounted with the sun.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Surely, Hugh thought, some ill-begotten one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of all that striving mass had lost the strife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And perished in the headlong stream of life⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A feast to fill the bellies of the strong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That still the weak might perish. All day long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He struggled down the stricken vale, nor saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What thing he sought. But when the twilight awe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was creeping in, beyond a bend arose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A din as though the kiotes and the crows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fought there with shrill and raucous battle cries.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Small need had Hugh to ponder and surmise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What guerdon beak and fang contended for.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Within himself the oldest cause of war", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brought forth upon the instant fang and beak.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He too would fight! Nor had he far to seek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the driftwood strewn about the sand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For weapons suited to a brawny hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With such a purpose. Armed with club and stone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He forged ahead into the battle zone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And from a screening thicket spied his foes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He saw a bison carcass black with crows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And over it a welter of black wings,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And round about, a press of tawny rings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That, like a muddy current churned to foam", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a snag, flashed whitely in the gloam", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With naked teeth; while close about the prize", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Red beaks and muzzles bloody to the eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Betrayed how worth a struggle was the feast.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then came on Hugh the fury of the beast⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To eat or to be eaten! Better so", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To die contending with a living foe,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than fight the yielding distance and the lack.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Masked by the brush he opened the attack,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever where a stone or club fell true,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the stricken one an uproar grew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And brute tore brute, forgetful of the prey,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the whole pack tumbled in the fray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With bleeding flanks and lacerated throats.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then, as the leader of a host who notes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The cannon-wrought confusion of the foe,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh seized the moment for a daring blow.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The wolf’s a coward, who, in goodly packs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May counterfeit the courage that he lacks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with a craven’s fury crush the bold.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when the disunited mass that rolled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In suicidal strife, became aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How some great beast that shambled like a bear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bore down with roaring challenge, fell a hush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the pack, some slinking to the brush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With tails a-droop; while some that whined in pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Writhed off on reddened trails. With bristled mane", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the flying stones a bolder few", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snarled menace at the foe as they withdrew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To fill the outer dusk with clamorings.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aloft upon a moaning wind of wings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crows with harsh, vituperative cries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now saw a gray wolf of prodigious size", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Devouring with the frenzy of the starved.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus fell to Hugh a bison killed and carved;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so Fate’s whims mysteriously trend⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Woe in the silken meshes of the friend,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Weal in the might and menace of the foe.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But with the fading of the afterglow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The routed wolves found courage to return:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the brush Hugh saw their eyeballs burn;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And well he knew how futile stick and stone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should prove by night to keep them from their own.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Better is less with safety, than enough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With ruin. He retreated to a bluff,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And scarce had reached it when the pack swooped in", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the carcass. All night long, the din", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wrangling wolves assailed the starry air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While high above them in a brushy lair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh dreamed of gnawing at the bloody feast.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Along about the blanching of the east,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When sleep is weirdest and a moment’s flight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remembered coextensive with the night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May teem with hapful years; as light in smoke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the jumble of Hugh’s dreaming broke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A buzz of human voices. Once again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He rode the westward trail with Henry’s men⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hoof-smitten leagues consuming in a dust.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the nightmare of that broken trust", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was on him, and he lay beside the spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A corpse, yet heard the muffled parleying", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above him of the looters of the dead:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when he might have riddled what they said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The babble flattened to a blur of gray⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lo, upon a bleak frontier of day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The spent moon staring down! A little space", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh scrutinized the featureless white face,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though ’twould speak. But when again the sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grew up, and seemed to come from under ground,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He cast the drowse, and peering down the slope,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beheld what set at grapple fear and hope⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three Indian horsemen riding at a jog!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their ponies, wading belly-deep in fog,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That clung along the valley, seemed to swim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And through a thinner vapor moving dim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The men were ghost-like. Could they be the Sioux?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Almost the wish became belief in Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or were they Rees? As readily the doubt", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Withheld him from the hazard of a shout.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And while he followed them with baffled gaze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grown large and vague, dissolving in the haze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They vanished westward. Knowing well the wont", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Indians moving on the bison-hunt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forthwith Hugh guessed the early riders were", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The outflung feelers of a tribe astir", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some huge cat gone mousing. So he lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Concealed, impatient with the sleepy day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That dawdled in the dawning. Would it bring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Good luck or ill? His eager questioning,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As crawling fog, took on a golden hue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From sunrise. He was waiting for the Sioux,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their parfleche panniers fat with sun-dried maize", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wasna! From the mint of evil days", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He would coin tales and be no begging guest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the tribal feast-fires burning west,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But kinsman of the blood of daring men.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the crawler stood erect again⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O Friend-Betrayer at the Big Horn’s mouth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beware of someone riding from the South", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To do the deed that he had lived to do!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now when the sun stood hour-high in the blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where a cloud of startled blackbirds rose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Down stream, a panic tumult broke the doze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of windless morning. What unwelcome news", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Embroiled the parliament of feathered shrews?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A boiling cloud against the sun they lower,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flackering strepent; now a sooty shower,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Big-flaked, squall-driven westward, down they flutter", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To set a clump of cottonwoods a-sputter", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With cold black fire! And once again, some shock", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sight or sound flings panic in the flock⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray boughs exploding in a ruck of birds!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What augury in orniscopic words", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Did yon swart sibyls on the morning scrawl?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now broke abruptly through the clacking brawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A camp-dog’s barking and a pony’s neigh;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereat a running nicker fled away,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Attenuating to a rearward hush;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lo! in hailing distance ’round the brush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That fringed a jutting bluff’s base like a beard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a stubborn chin out-thrust, appeared", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A band of mounted warriors! In their van", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aloof and lonely rode a gnarled old man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a piebald stallion. Stooped was he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath his heavy years, yet haughtily", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He wore them like the purple of a king.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Keen for a goal, as from the driving string", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A barbed and feathered arrow truly sped,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His face was like a flinty arrow-head,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And brooded westward in a steady stare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There was a sift of winter in his hair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bleakness of brown winter in his look.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh saw, and huddled closer in his nook.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fled the bright dreams of safety, feast and rest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before that keen, cold brooder on the West,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As gaudy leaves before the blizzard flee.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas Elk Tongue, fighting chieftain of the Ree,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With all his people at his pony’s tail⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Full two-score lodges emptied on the trail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of hunger! On they came in ravelled rank,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And many a haggard eye and hollow flank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made plain how close and pitilessly pressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The enemy that drove them to the West⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Such foeman as no warrior ever slew.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A tale of cornfields plundered by the Sioux", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their sagging panniers told. Yet rich enough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They seemed to him who watched them from the bluff;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yea, pampered nigh the limit of desire!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No friend had filched from them the boon of fire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hurled them shivering back upon the beast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Erect they went, full-armed to strive, at least;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nightly in a cozy ember-glow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hope fed them with a dream of buffalo", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Soon to be overtaken. After that,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Home with their Pawnee cousins on the Platte,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Much meat and merry-making till the Spring.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On dragged the rabble like a fraying string", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Too tautly drawn. The rich-in-ponies rode,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For much is light and little is a load", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among all heathen with no Christ to save!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray seekers for the yet begrudging grave,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bent with the hoeing of forgotten maize,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wood-hewers, water-bearers all their days,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Toiled ’neath the life-long hoarding of their packs.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nursing squaws, their babies at their backs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whining because the milk they got was thinned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In dugs of famine, strove as with a wind.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Invincibly equipped with their first bows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The striplings strutted, knowing, as youth knows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How fair life is beyond the beckoning blue.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cold-eyed the grandsires plodded, for they knew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As frosted heads may know, how all trails merge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In what lone land. Raw maidens on the verge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of some half-guessed-at mystery of life,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In wistful emulation of the wife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stooped to the fancied burden of the race;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor read upon the withered granddam’s face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The scrawled tale of that burden and its woe.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slant to the sagging poles of the travaux,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Numb to the squaw’s harsh railing and the goad,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lean cayuses toiled. And children rode", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Atop the household plunder, wonder-eyed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see a world flow by on either side,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From blue air sprung to vanish in blue air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A river of enchantments. Here and there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The camp-curs loped upon a vexing quest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where countless hoofs had left a palimpsest,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A taunting snarl of broken scents. And now", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They sniff the clean bones of the bison cow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Howl to the skies; and now with manes a-rough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They nose the man-smell leading to the bluff;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pause puzzled at the base and sweep the height", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With questioning yelps. Aloft, crouched low in fright,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Already Hugh can hear the braves’ guffaws", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At their scorned foeman yielded to the squaws’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Inverted mercy and a slow-won grave.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Since Earth’s first mother scolded from a cave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that dear riddle of her love began,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No man has wrought a weapon against man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To match the deadly venom brewed above", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lean, blue, blinding heart-fires of her love.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Well might the hunted hunter shrink aghast!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But thrice three seasons yet should swell the past,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So was it writ, ere Fate’s keen harriers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should run Hugh Glass to earth. The hungry curs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Took up again the tangled scent of food.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still flowed the rabble through the solitude⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A thinning stream now of the halt, the weak", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all who had not very far to seek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For that weird pass whereto the fleet are slow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And out of it keen winds and numbing blow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shrill with the fleeing voices of the dead.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slowly the scattered stragglers, making head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against their weariness as up a steep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fled westward; and the morning lay asleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the valley fallen wondrous still.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Hugh kept his nook, nor ventured forth, until", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The high day toppled to the blue descent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When thirst became a master, and he went", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With painful scrambling down the broken scarp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lured by the stream, that like a smitten harp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rippled a muted music to the sun.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Scarce had he crossed the open flat, and won", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The halfway fringe of willows, when he saw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slow plodding up the trail, a tottering squaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose years made big the little pack she bore.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Crouched in the brush Hugh watched her. More and more", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The little burden tempted him. Why not?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A thin cry throttled in that lonely spot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could bring no succor. None should ever know,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save him, the feasted kiote and the crow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why one poor crone found not the midnight fire.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor would the vanguard, quick with young desire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Devouring distance westward like a flame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Regret this ash dropped rearward. On she came,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slow-footed, staring blankly on the sand⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So close now that it needed but a hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out-thrust to overthrow her; aye, to win", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That priceless spoil, a little tent of skin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A flint and steel, a kettle and a knife!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What did the dying with the means of life,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That thus the fit-to-live should suffer lack?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Poised for the lunge, what whimsy held him back?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why did he gaze upon the passing prize,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor seize it? Did some gust of ghostly cries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Awaken round her⁠—whisperings of Eld,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wraith-voices of the babies she had held⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To plead for pity on her graveward days?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far down a moment’s cleavage in the haze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of backward years Hugh saw her now⁠—nor saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The little burden and the feeble squaw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But someone sitting haloed like a saint", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside a hearth long cold. The dream grew faint;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when he looked again, the crone was gone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond a clump of willow. Crawling on,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He reached the river. Leaning to a pool", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Calm in its cup of sand, he saw⁠—a fool!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wild, wry mask of mirth, a-grin, yet grim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose there to claim identity with him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ridicule his folly. Pity? Faugh!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who pitied this, that it should spare a squaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spent in the spawning of a scorpion brood?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He drank and hastened down the solitude,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fleeing that thing which fleered him, and was Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And as he went his self-accusing grew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with it, anger; till it came to seem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That somehow some sly Jamie of a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had plundered him again; and he was strong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With lust of vengeance and the sting of wrong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So that he travelled faster than for days.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now when the eve in many-shaded grays", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wove the day’s shroud, and through the lower lands", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lean fog-arms groped with chilling spirit hands,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh paused perplexed. Elusive, haunting, dim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though some memory that stirred in him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Invasive of the real, outgrew the dream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There came upon the breeze that stole up stream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A whiff of woodsmoke. ’Twixt a beat and beat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Hugh’s deluded heart, it seemed the sweet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Allure of home.⁠—A brief way, and one came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the clearing where the sumach flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran round the forest-fringe; and just beyond", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One saw the slough grass nodding in the pond", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unto the sleepy troll the bullfrogs sung.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then one saw the place where one was young⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The log-house sitting on a stumpy rise.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hearth-lit within, its windows were as eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That love much and are faded with old tears.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed regretful of a life’s arrears,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet patient, with a self-denying poise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some old mother for her bearded boys", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Waiting sweet-hearted and a little sad.⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So briefly dreamed a recrudescent lad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath gray hairs, and fled. Through chill and damp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still groped the odor, hinting at a camp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A two-tongued herald wooing hope and fear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was hospitality or danger near?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A Sioux war-party hot upon the trail,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or laggard Rees? Hugh crawled across the vale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Toiled up along a zigzag gully’s bed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And reached a bluff’s top. In a smudge of red", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The West burned low. Hill summits, yet alight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pools of gloom anticipating night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mottled the landscape to the dull blue rim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What freak of fancy had imposed on him?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could one smell home-smoke fifty years away?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw no fire; no pluming spire of gray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose in the dimming air to woo or warn.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He lay upon the bare height, fagged, forlorn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And old times came upon him with the creep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of subtle drugs that put the will to sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wreak doom to the soothing of a dream.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So listlessly he scanned the sombrous stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce seeing what he scanned. The dark increased;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A chill wind wakened from the frowning east", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And soughed along the vale. Then with a start", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw what broke the torpor of his heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And set the wild blood free. From where he lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An easy point-blank rifle-shot away,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Appeared a mystic germinating spark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That in some secret garden of the dark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upreared a frail, blue, nodding stem, whereon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ruddy lily flourished⁠—and was gone!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What miracle was this? Again it grew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The scarlet blossom on the stem of blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And withered back again into the night.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "With pounding heart Hugh crawled along the height", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And reached a point of vantage whence, below,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw capricious witch-lights dim and glow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like far-spent embers quickened in a breeze.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas surely not a camp of laggard Rees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor yet of Siouan warriors hot in chase.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dusk and a quiet bivouacked in that place.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A doddering vagrant with numb hands, the Wind", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fumbled the dying ashes there, and whined.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It was the day-old camp-ground of the foe!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Glad-hearted now, Hugh gained the vale below,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Keen to possess once more the ancient gift.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nearing the glow, he saw vague shadows lift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out of the painted gloom of smouldering logs⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Distorted bulks that bristled, and were dogs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snarling at this invasion of their lair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh charged upon them, growling like a bear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sent them whining. Now again to view", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The burgeoning of scarlet, gold and blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The immemorial miracle of fire!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From heaped-up twigs a tenuous smoky spire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Arose, and made an altar of the place.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The spark-glow, faint upon the grizzled face,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Transformed the kneeling outcast to a priest;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, native of the light-begetting East,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Wind became a chanting acolyte.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These two, entempled in the vaulted night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Breathed conjuries of interwoven breath.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then, hark!⁠—the snapping of the chains of Death!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From dead wood, lo!⁠—the epiphanic god!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Once more the freightage of the fennel rod", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dissolved the chilling pall of Jovian scorn.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wonder of the resurrection morn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The face apocalyptic and the sword,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The glory of the many-symboled Lord,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh, lifting up his eyes about him, saw!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And something in him like a vernal thaw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Voiced with the sound of many waters, ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And quickened to the laughter of a man.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Light-heartedly he fed the singing flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And took its blessing: till a soft sleep came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With dreaming that was like a pleasant tale.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The far white dawn was peering up the vale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he awoke to indolent content.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A few shorn stars in pale astonishment", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were huddled westward; and the fire was low.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three scrawny camp-curs, mustered in a row", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond the heap of embers, heads askew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ears pricked to question what the man might do,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sat wistfully regardant. He arose;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And they, grown canny in a school of blows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Skulked to a safer distance, there to raise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A dolorous chanting of the evil days,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their gray breath like the body of a prayer.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh nursed the sullen embers to a flare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then set about to view an empty camp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As once before; but now no smoky lamp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of blear suspicion searched a gloom of fraud", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein a smirking Friendship, like a bawd,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Embraced a coward Safety; now no grief,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twixt hideous revelation and belief,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made womanish the man; but glad to strive,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With hope to nerve him and a will to drive,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He knew that he could finish in the race.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The staring impassivity of space", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No longer mocked; the dreadful skyward climb,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where distance seemed identical with time,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was past now; and that mystic something, luck,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Without which worth may flounder in the ruck,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had turned to him again. So flamelike soared", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rekindled hope in him as he explored", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the ash-heaps; and the lean dogs ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And barked about him, for the love of man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wistful, yet fearing. Surely he could find", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some trifle in the hurry left behind⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or haply hidden in the trampled sand⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That to the cunning of a needy hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should prove the master-key of circumstance:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For ’tis the little gifts of grudging Chance,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Well husbanded, make victors. Long he sought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Without avail; and, crawling back, he thought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of how the dogs were growing less afraid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how one might be skinned without a blade.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A flake of flint might do it: he would try.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then he saw⁠—or did the servile eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Trick out a mental image like the real?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw a glimmering of whetted steel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside a heap now washed with morning light!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Scarce more of marvel and the sense of might", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Moved Arthur when he reached a hand to take", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fay-wrought brand emerging from the lake,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereby a kingdom should be lopped of strife,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than Hugh now, pouncing on a trader’s knife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Worn hollow in the use of bounteous days!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now behold a rich man by the blaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of his own hearth⁠—a lord of steel and fire!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not having, but the measure of desire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Determines wealth. Who gaining more, seek most,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are ever the pursuers of a ghost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lend their fleetness to the fugitive.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Hugh, long goaded by the wish to live,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What gage of mastery in fire and tool!⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That twain wherewith Time put the brute to school,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Evolving Man, the maker and the seer.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twixt urging hunger and restraining fear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gaunt dogs hovered round the man; while he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cajoled them in the language of the Ree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And simulated feeding them with sand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the boldest dared to sniff his hand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bare-fanged and with conciliative whine.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through bristled mane the quick blade bit the spine", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Below the skull; and as a flame-struck thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The body humped and shuddered, withering;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lank limbs huddled, wilted. Now to skin", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The carcass, dig a hole, arrange therein", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And fix the pelt with stakes, the flesh-side up.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This done, he shaped the bladder to a cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On willow withes, and filled the rawhide pot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With water from the river⁠—made it hot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With roasted stones, and set the meat a-boil.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those days of famine and prodigious toil", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had wrought bulimic cravings in the man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And scarce the cooking of the flesh outran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The eating of it. As a fed flame towers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "According to the fuel it devours,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His hunger with indulgence grew, nor ceased", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the kettle, empty of the feast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went dim, the sky and valley, merging, swirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In subtle smoke that smothered out the world.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh slept. And then⁠—as divers, mounting, sunder", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A murmuring murk to blink in sudden wonder", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a dazzling upper deep of blue⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He rose again to consciousness, and knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The low sun beating slantly on his face.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now indolently gazing round the place,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He noted how the curs had revelled there⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bones and entrails gone; some scattered hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alone remaining of the pot of hide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How strange he had not heard them at his side!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And granting but one afternoon had passed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What could have made the fire burn out so fast?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had daylight waned, night fallen, morning crept,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Noon blazed, a new day dwindled while he slept?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And was the friendlike fire a Jamie too?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the twilit consciousness of Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old obsession like a wounded bird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fluttered. He got upon his knees and stirred", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The feathery ash; but not a spark was there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Already with the failing sun the air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went keen, betokening a frosty night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh winced with something like the clutch of fright.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How could he bear the torture, how sustain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sting of that antiquity of pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rolled back upon him⁠—face again the foe,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That yielding victor, fleet in being slow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That huge, impersonal malevolence?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So readily the tentacles of sense", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Root in the larger standard of desire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That Hugh fell farther in the loss of fire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than in the finding of it he arose.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And suddenly the place grew strange, as grows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A friend’s house, when the friend is on his bier,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all that was familiar there and dear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Puts on a blank, inhospitable look.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh set his face against the east, and took", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That dreariest of ways, the trail of flight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He would outcrawl the shadow of the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And have the day to blanket him in sleep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But as he went to meet the gloom a-creep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bemused with life’s irrational rebuffs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A yelping of the dogs among the bluffs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose, hunger-whetted, stabbing; rent the pall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of evening silence; blunted to a drawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the arid waterways, and died.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And as the echo to the sound replied,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So in the troubled mind of Hugh was wrought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A reminiscent cry of thought to thought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That, groping, found an unlocked door to life:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dogs⁠—keen flint to skin one⁠—then the knife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Discovered. Why, that made a flint and steel!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No further with the subtle foe at heel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He fled; for all about him in the rock,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To waken when the needy hand might knock,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A savior slept! He found a flake of flint,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scraped from his shirt a little wad of lint,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spilled on it from the smitten stone a shower", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of ruddy seed; and saw the mystic flower", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That genders its own summer, bloom anew!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And so capricious luck came back to Hugh;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he was happier than he had been", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Since Jamie to that unforgiven sin", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had yielded, ages back upon the Grand.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now he would turn the cunning of his hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To carving crutches, that he might arise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Be manlike, lift more rapidly the skies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That crouched between his purpose and the mark.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The warm glow housed him from the frosty dark,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there he wrought in very joyous mood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sang by fits⁠—whereat the solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Set laggard singers snatching at the tune.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gaunter for their hunt, the dogs came soon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To haunt the shaken fringes of the glow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, pitching voices to the timeless woe,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Outwailed the lilting. So the Chorus sings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of terror, pity and the tears of things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When most the doomed protagonist is gay.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stars swarmed over, and the front of day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whitened above a white world, and the sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose on a sleeper with a task well done,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor roused him till its burning topped the blue.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "When Hugh awoke, there woke a younger Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now half a stranger; and ’twas good to feel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With ebbing sleep the old green vigor steal,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thrilling, along his muscles and his veins,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As in a lull of winter-cleansing rains", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gray bough quickens to the sap a-creep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It chanced the dogs lay near him, sound asleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Curled nose to buttock in the noonday glow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He killed the larger with a well-aimed blow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Skinned, dressed and set it roasting on a spit;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when ’twas cooked, ate sparingly of it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For need might yet make little seem a feast.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fording the river shallows, south by east", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He hobbled now along a withered rill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That issued where old floods had gashed the hill⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A cyclopean portal yawning sheer.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No storm of countless hoofs had entered here:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed a place where nothing ever comes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But change of season. He could hear the plums", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Plash in the frosted thicket, over-lush;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While, like a spirit lisping in the hush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crisp leaves whispered round him as they fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever now and then the autumn spell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was broken by an ululating cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where far back with muzzle to the sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lone dog followed, mourning. Darkness came;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And huddled up beside a cozy flame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh’s sleep was but a momentary flight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across a little shadow into light.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So day on day he toiled: and when, afloat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the sunset like a stygian boat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The new moon bore the spectre of the old,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw⁠—a dwindling strip of blue outrolled⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The valley of the tortuous Cheyenne.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ere the half moon sailed the night again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those far lone leagues had sloughed their garb of blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dwindled, dwindled, dwindled after Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until he saw that Titan of the plains,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sinewy Missouri. Dearth of rains", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had made the Giant gaunt as he who saw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This loud Chain-Smasher of a late March thaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed never to have bellowed at his banks;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And yet, with staring ribs and hollow flanks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The urge of an indomitable will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Proclaimed him of the breed of giants still;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where the current ran a boiling track,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas like the muscles of a mighty back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grown Atlantean in the wrestler’s craft.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Hugh set to work and built a little raft", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of driftwood bound with grapevines. So it fell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That one with an amazing tale to tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came drifting to the gates of Kiowa.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Not long Hugh let the lust of vengeance gnaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon him idling; though the tale he told", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what report proclaimed him, were as gold", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To buy a winter’s comfort at the Post.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I can not rest; for I am but the ghost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of someone murdered by a friend,” he said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“So long as yonder traitor thinks me dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, buried in the bellies of the crows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And kiotes!” Whereupon said one of those", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who heard him, noting how the old man shook", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with a chill: “God fend that one should look", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With such a blizzard of a face for me!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For he went grayer like a poplar tree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That shivers, ruffling to the first faint breath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of storm, while yet the world is still as death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save where, far off, the kenneled thunders bay.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So brooding, he grew stronger day by day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until at last he laid the crutches by.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then one evening came a rousing cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where the year’s last keelboat hove in view", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Around the bend, its swarthy, sweating crew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slant to the shouldered line. Men sang that night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Kiowa, and by the ruddy light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of leaping fires amid the wooden walls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The cups went round; and there were merry brawls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of bearded lads no older for the beard;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And laughing stories vied with tales of weird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By stream and prairie trail and mountain pass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the tipsy Bourgeois bawled for Glass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To “shame these with a man’s tale fit to hear.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The graybeard, sitting where the light was blear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With little heart for revelry, began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His story, told as of another man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who, loving late, loved much and was betrayed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He spoke unwitting how his passion played", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon them, how their eyes grew soft or hard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With what he told; yet something of the bard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed, and his the purpose that is art’s,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereby men make a vintage of their hearts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with the wine of beauty deaden pain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Low-toned, insistent as October rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His voice beat on; and now and then would flit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the melancholy gray of it", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A glimmer of cold fire that, like the flare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of soundless lightning, showed a world made bare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Green Summer slain and all its leafage stripped.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And bronze jaws tightened, brawny hands were gripped,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though each hearer had a fickle friend.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when the old man might have made an end,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rounding the story to a peaceful close", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At Kiowa, songlike his voice arose,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The grinning gray mask lifted and the eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Burned as a bard’s who sees and prophesies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Conning the future as a time long gone.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swaying to rhythm the dizzy tale plunged on", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even to the cutting of the traitor’s throat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ceased⁠—as though a bloody strangling smote", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The voice of that gray chanter, drunk with doom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there was shuddering in the blue-smeared gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of fallen fires. It seemed the deed was done", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before their eyes who heard. The morrow’s sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Low over leagues of frost-enchanted plain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Saw Glass upon his pilgrimage again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Northbound as hunter for the keelboat’s crew.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And many times the wide autumnal blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Burned out and darkened to a deep of stars;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still they toiled among the snags and bars⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those lean up-stream men, straining at the rope,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lashed by the doubt and strengthened by the hope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of backward winter⁠—engines wrought of bone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And muscle, panting for the Yellowstone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bend after bend and yet more bends away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now was the river like a sandy bay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At ebb-tide, and the far-off cutbank’s boom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mocked them in shallows; now ’twas like a flume", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With which the toilers, barely creeping, strove.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bend by bend the selfsame poplar grove,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Set on the selfsame headland, so it seemed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Confronted them, as though they merely dreamed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of passing one drear point. So on and up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Past where the tawny Titan gulps the cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Cheyenne waters, past the Moreau’s mouth;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still wry league and stubborn league fell south,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Becoming haze and weary memory.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then past the empty lodges of the Ree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That gaped at cornfields plundered by the Sioux;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there old times came mightily on Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For much of him was born and buried there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some troubled glory of that wind-tossed hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was on the trampled corn; the lonely skies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So haunted with the blue of Jamie’s eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed taunting him; and through the frosted wood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the flat, where once their tent had stood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A chill wind sorrowed, and the blackbirds’ brawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the funeral torches of the Fall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran raucously, a desecrating din.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Past where the Cannon Ball and Heart come in", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They labored. Now the Northwest ’woke at last.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gaunt bluffs bellowed back the trumpet blast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of charging winds that made the sandbars smoke.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To breathe now was to gulp fine sand, and choke:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stinging air was sibilant with whips.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Leaning the more and with the firmer grips,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still northward the embattled toilers pressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where the river yaws into the west.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There stood the Mandan village. Now began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The chaining of the Titan. Drift-ice ran.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wingèd hounds of Winter ceased to bay.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stupor of a doom completed lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the world. The biting darkness fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out in the night, resounding as a well,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They heard the deck-planks popping in a vise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of frost; all night the smithies of the ice", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Reëchoed with the griding jar and clink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of ghostly hammers welding link to link:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And morning found the world without a sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There lay the stubborn Prairie Titan bound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To wait the far-off Heraclean thaw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though still in silent rage he strove to gnaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ragged shackles knitting at his breast.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And so the boatman won a winter’s rest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the Mandan traders: but for Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There yet remained a weary work to do.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the naked country west by south", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His purpose called him at the Big Horn’s mouth⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three hundred miles of winging for the crow;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But by the river trail that he must go", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas seven hundred winding miles at least.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So now he turned his back upon the feast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snug ease, the pleasant tale, the merry mood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And took the bare, foot-sounding solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Northwestward. Long they watched him from the Post,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Skied on a bluff-rim, fading like a ghost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At gray cock-crow; and hooded in his breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed indeed a fugitive from Death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On whom some tatter of the shroud still clung.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blank space engulfed him. Now the moon was young", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he set forth; and day by day he strode,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His scarce healed wounds upon him like a load;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dusk by dusk his fire out-flared the moon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That waxed until it wrought a spectral noon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At nightfall. Then he came to where, awhirl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With Spring’s wild rage, the snow-born Titan girl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A skyey wonder on her virgin face,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Receives the virile Yellowstone’s embrace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bears the lusty Seeker for the Sea.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bleak, horizon-wide serenity", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clung round the valley where the twain lay dead.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A winding sheet was on the marriage bed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas warmer now; the sky grew overcast;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And as Hugh strode southwestward, all the vast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray void seemed suddenly astir with wings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And multitudinary whisperings⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The muffled sibilance of tumbling snow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed no more might living waters flow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Moon gleam, star glint, dawn smoulder through, bird sing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or ever any fair familiar thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Be so again. The outworn winds were furled.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Weird weavers of the twilight of a world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wrought, thread on kissing thread, the web of doom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grown insubstantial in the knitted gloom,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bluffs loomed eerie, and the scanty trees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were dwindled to remote dream-traceries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That never might be green or shield a nest.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All day with swinging stride Hugh forged southwest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the Yellowstone’s smooth-paven stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A dream-shape moving in a troubled dream;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all day long the whispering weavers wove.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And close on dark he came to where a grove", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of cottonwoods rose tall and shadow-thin", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the northern bluffs. He camped therein", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with cut boughs made shelter as he might.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Close pressed the blackness of the snow-choked night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About him, and his fire of plum wood purred.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Athwart a soft penumbral drowse he heard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tumbling snowflakes sighing all around,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till sleep transformed it to a Summer sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of boyish memory⁠—susurrant bees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Southwind in the tousled apple trees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And slumber flowing from their leafy gloom.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He wakened to the cottonwoods’ deep boom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Black fury was the world. The northwest’s roar,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As of a surf upon a shipwreck shore,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Plunged high above him from the sheer bluff’s verge;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like the backward sucking of the surge,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far fled the sobbing of the wild snow-spray.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Black blindness grew white blindness⁠—and ’twas day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All being now seemed narrowed to a span", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That held a sputtering wood fire and a man;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond was tumult and a whirling maze.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trees were but a roaring in a haze;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sheer bluff-wall that took the blizzard’s charge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was thunder flung along the hidden marge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of chaos, stridden by the ghost of light.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White blindness grew black blindness⁠—and ’twas night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherethrough nor moon nor any star might grope.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Two days since, Hugh had killed an antelope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what remained sufficed the time of storm.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The snow banked round his shelter kept him warm", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there was wood to burn for many a day.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The third dawn, oozing through a smudge of gray,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Awoke him. It was growing colder fast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still from the bluff high over boomed the blast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But now it took the void with numbing wings.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By noon the woven mystery of things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Frayed raggedly, and through a sudden rift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At length Hugh saw the beetling bluff-wall lift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sturdy shoulder to the flying rack.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slowly the sense of distances came back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with the waning day the great wind fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The pale sun set upon a frozen hell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wolves howled.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Hugh had left the Mandan town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When, heifer-horned, the maiden moon lies down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the sea of evening. Now she rose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scar-faced and staring blankly on the snows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While yet the twilight tarried in the west;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And more and more she came a tardy guest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As Hugh pushed onward through the frozen waste", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until she stole on midnight shadow-faced,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A haggard spectre; then no more appeared.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas on that time the man of hoary beard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Paused in the early twilight, looming lone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a bluff-rim of the Yellowstone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And peered across the white stream to the south", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where in the flatland at the Big Horn’s mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The new fort stood that Henry’s men had built.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What perfect peace for such a nest of guilt!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What satisfied immunity from woe!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yon sprawling shadow, pied with candle-glow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And plumed with sparkling woodsmoke, might have been", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A homestead with the children gathered in", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To share its bounty through the holidays.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh saw their faces round the gay hearth-blaze:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hale old father in a mood for yarns", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or boastful of the plenty of his barns,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fruitage of honest toil and grateful lands;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, half a stranger to her folded hands,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The mother with October in her hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And August in her face. One moment there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh saw it. Then the monstrous brutal fact", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wiped out the dream and goaded him to act,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though now to act seemed strangely like a dream.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Descending from the bluff, he crossed the stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dry snow fifing to his eager stride.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Reaching the fort stockade, he paused to bide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The passing of a whimsy. Was it true?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or was this but the fretted wraith of Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose flesh had fed the kiotes long ago?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Still through a chink he saw the candle-glow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So like an eye that brazened out a wrong.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now there came a flight of muffled song,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rhythmic thudding of a booted heel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That timed a squeaking fiddle to a reel!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How swiftly men forget! The spawning Earth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is fat with graves; and what is one man worth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That fiddles should be muted at his fall?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He should have died and did not⁠—that was all.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Well, let the living jig it! He would turn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Back to the night, the spacious unconcern", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wilderness that never played the friend.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now came the song and fiddling to an end,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And someone laughed within. The old man winced,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Listened with bated breath, and was convinced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas Jamie laughing! Once again he heard.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Joy filled a hush ’twixt heart-beats like a bird;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then like a famished cat his lurking hate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pounced crushingly. He found the outer gate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beat on it with his shoulder, raised a cry.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No doubt ’twas deemed a fitful wind went by;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "None stirred. But when he did not cease to shout,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A door creaked open and a man came out", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the spilling candle-glimmer, raised", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wicket in the outer gate and gazed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One moment on a face as white as death,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because the beard was thick with frosted breath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made mystic by the stars. Then came a gasp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The clatter of the falling wicket’s hasp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crunch of panic feet along the snow;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And someone stammered huskily and low:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“My God! I saw the Old Man’s ghost out there!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas spoken as one speaks who feels his hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prickle the scalp. And then another said⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed like Henry’s voice⁠—“The dead are dead:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What talk is this, Le Bon? You saw him die!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who’s there?” Hugh strove to shout, to give the lie", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To those within; but could not fetch a sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Just so he dreamed of lying under ground", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the Grand and hearing overhead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The talk of men. Or was he really dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all this but a maggot in the brain?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then suddenly the clatter of a chain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aroused him, and he saw the portal yawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw a bright rectangled patch of dawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As through a grave’s mouth⁠—no, ’twas candlelight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Poured through the open doorway on the night;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And those were men before him, bulking black", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the glow. Reality flashed back;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He strode ahead and entered at the door.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A falling fiddle jangled on the floor", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And left a deathly silence. On his bench", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fiddler shrank. A row of eyes, a-blench", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With terror, ran about the naked hall.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there was one who huddled by the wall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hid his face and shivered. For a spell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That silence clung; and then the old man: “Well,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is this the sort of welcome that I get?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas not my time to feed the kiotes yet!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Put on the pot and stew a chunk of meat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And you shall see how much a ghost can eat!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’ve journeyed far if what I hear be true!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now in that none might doubt the voice of Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor yet the face, however it might seem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A blurred reflection in a flowing stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A buzz of wonder broke the trance of dread.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Good God!” the Major gasped; “We thought you dead!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two men have testified they saw you die!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“If they speak truth,” Hugh answered, “then I lie", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Both here and by the Grand. If I be right,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then two lie here and shall lie from this night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which are they?” Henry answered: “Yon is one.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The old man set the trigger of his gun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gazed on Jules who cowered by the wall.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Eyes blinked, expectant of the hammer’s fall;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ears strained, anticipative of the roar.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Hugh walked leisurely across the floor", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And kicked the croucher, saying: “Come, get up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wag your tail! I couldn’t kill a pup!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then turning round: “I had a faithful friend;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No doubt he too was with me to the end!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where’s Jamie?” “Started out before the snows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Atkinson.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The Country of the Crows,", "indent": 8 }, { "text": "Through which the Big Horn and the Rosebud run,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sees over mountain peaks the setting sun;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And southward from the Yellowstone flung wide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It broadens ever to the morning side", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And has the Powder on its vague frontier.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the subtle changing of the year,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ere even favored valleys felt the stir", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Spring, and yet expectancy of her", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like a pleasant rumor all repeat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet none may prove, the sound of horses’ feet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went eastward through the silence of that land.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For then it was there rode a little band", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of trappers out of Henry’s Post, to bear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dispatches down to Atkinson, and there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To furnish out a keelboat for the Horn.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And four went lightly, but the fifth seemed worn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with a heavy heart; for that was he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who should have died but did not. Silently", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He heard the careless parley of his men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thought of how the Spring should come again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That garish strumpet with her world-old lure,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To waken hope where nothing may endure,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To quicken love where loving is betrayed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet now and then some dream of Jamie made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slow music in him for a little while;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And they who rode beside him saw a smile", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Glimmer upon that ruined face of gray,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As on a winter fog the groping day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pours glory through a momentary rift.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet never did the gloom that bound him, lift;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed as one who feeds upon his heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And finds, despite the bitter and the smart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little sweetness and is glad for that.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now up the Powder, striking for the Platte", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the bleak divide the horsemen went;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Attained that river where its course is bent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From north to east: and spurring on apace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the wintry valley, reached the place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where from the west flows in the Laramie.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thence, fearing to encounter with the Ree,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They headed eastward through the barren land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where, fleet-footed down a track of sand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Niobrara races for the morn⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gaunt-loined runner.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Here at length was born", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the southern slopes the baby Spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A timid, fretful, ill-begotten thing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A-suckle at the Winter’s withered paps:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not such as when announced by thunder-claps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ringed with swords of lightning, she would ride,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The haughty victrix and the mystic bride,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clad splendidly as never Sheba’s Queen,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before her marching multitudes of green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In many-bannered triumph! Grudging, slow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the fraying fringes of the snow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bunchgrass sprouted; and the air was chill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the northern slopes ’twas winter still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And no root dreamed what Triumph-over-Death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was nurtured now in some bleak Nazareth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond the crest to sunward. On they spurred", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through vacancies that waited for the bird,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And everywhere the Odic Presence dwelt.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Southwest blew, the snow began to melt;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when they reached the valley of the Snake,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Niobrara’s ice began to break,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all night long and all day long it made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sound as of a random cannonade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With rifles snarling down a skirmish line.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The geese went over. Every tree and vine", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was dotted thick with leaf-buds when they saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The little river of Keyapaha", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grown mighty for the moment. Then they came,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One evening when all thickets were aflame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With pale green witch-fires and the windflowers blew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where the headlong Niobrara threw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His speed against the swoln Missouri’s flank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hurled him roaring to the further bank⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A giant staggered by a pygmy’s sling.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thence, plunging ever deeper into Spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the greening prairie east by south", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They rode, and, just above the Platte’s wide mouth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came, weary with the trail, to Atkinson.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "There all the vernal wonder-work was done:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No care-free heart might find aught lacking there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dove’s call wandered in the drowsy air;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A love-dream brooded in the lucent haze.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Priapic revellers, the shrieking jays", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Held mystic worship in the secret shade.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Woodpeckers briskly plied their noisy trade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the tree-boles, and their scarlet hoods", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flashed flamelike in the smoky cottonwoods.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What lacked? Not sweetness in the sun-lulled breeze;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The plum bloom murmurous with bumblebees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was drifted deep in every draw and slough.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not color; witcheries of gold and blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dandelion and the violet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wove in the green. Might not the sad forget,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The happy here have nothing more to seek?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lo, yonder by that pleasant little creek,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How one might loll upon the grass and fish", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And build the temple of one’s wildest wish", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twixt nibbles! Surely there was quite enough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wizard-timber and of wonder-stuff", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To rear it nobly to the blue-domed roof!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet there was one whose spirit stood aloof", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From all this joyousness⁠—a gray old man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No nearer now than when the quest began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To what he sought on that long winter trail.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Aye, Jamie had been there; but when the tale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That roving trappers brought from Kiowa", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was told to him, he seemed as one who saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ghost, and could but stare on it, they said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until one day he mounted horse and fled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into the North, a devil-ridden man.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I’ve got to go and find him if I can,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was all he said for days before he left.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And what of Hugh? So long of love bereft,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So long sustained and driven by his hate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A touch of ruth now made him desolate.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No longer eager to avenge the wrong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With not enough of pity to be strong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And just enough of love to choke and sting,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gray old hulk amid the surge of Spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He floundered on a lee-shore of the heart.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But when the boat was ready for the start", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Up the long watery stairway to the Horn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hugh joined the party. And the year was shorn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of blooming girlhood as they forged amain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into the North; the late green-mantled plain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grew sallow; and the ruthless golden shower", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Summer wrought in lust upon the flower", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That withered in the endless martyrdom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To seed. The scarlet quickened on the plum", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the Heart’s mouth when they came thereto;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the Mandans grapes were turning blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And they were purple at the Yellowstone.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A frosted scrub-oak, standing out alone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a barren bluff top, gazing far", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the crossing at the Powder’s bar,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was spattered with the blood of Summer slain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So it was Autumn in the world again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all those months of toil had yielded nought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Hugh. (How often is the seeker sought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By what he seeks⁠—a blind, heart-breaking game!)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For always had the answer been the same", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From roving trapper and at trading post:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, one who seemed to stare upon a ghost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And followed willy-nilly where it led,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had gone that way in search of Hugh, they said⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A haggard, blue-eyed, yellow-headed chap.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And often had the old man thought, “Mayhap", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He’ll be at Henry’s Post and we shall meet;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And to forgive and to forget were sweet:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis for its nurse that Vengeance whets the tooth!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And oh the golden time of Jamie’s youth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That it should darken for a graybeard’s whim!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Hugh had brooded, till there came on him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The pity of a slow rain after drouth.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But at the crossing of the Rosebud’s mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A shadow fell upon his growing dream.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A band of Henry’s traders, bound down stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who paused to traffic in the latest word⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Down-river news for matters seen and heard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In higher waters⁠—had not met the lad,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not yet encountered anyone who had.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alas, the journey back to yesterwhiles!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How tangled are the trails! The stubborn miles,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How wearily they stretch! And if one win", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The long way back in search of what has been,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shall he find aught that is not strange and new?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus wrought the melancholy news in Hugh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As he turned back with those who brought the news;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For more and more he dreaded now to lose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What doubtful seeking rendered doubly dear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the time when keen winds stripped the year", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He came with those to where the Poplar joins", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The greater river. There Assinoboines,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rich from the Summer’s hunting, had come down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And flung along the flat their ragged town,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That traders might bring goods and winter there.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So leave the heartsick graybeard. Otherwhere", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The final curtain rises on the play.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis dead of Winter now. For day on day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The blizzard wind has thundered, sweeping wide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From Mississippi to the Great Divide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out of the North beyond Saskatchewan.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brief evening glimmers like an inverse dawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "After a long white night. The tempest dies;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The snow-haze lifts. Now let the curtain rise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon Milk River valley, and reveal", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stars like broken glass on frosted steel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the Piegan lodges, huddled deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In snowdrifts, like a freezing flock of sheep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A crystal weight the dread cold crushes down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And no one moves about the little town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That seems to grovel as a thing that fears.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But see! a lodge-flap swings; a squaw appears,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hunched with the sudden cold. Her footsteps creak", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shrill in the hush. She stares upon the bleak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White skyline for a moment, then goes in.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We follow her, push back the flap of skin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Enter the lodge, inhale the smoke-tanged air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And blink upon the little faggot-flare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That blossoms in the center of the room.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unsteady shadows haunt the outer gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein the walls are guessed at. Upward, far,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The smoke-vent now and then reveals a star", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As in a well. The ancient squaw, a-stoop,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her face light-stricken, stirs a pot of soup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That simmers with a pleasant smell and sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gnarled old man, cross-legged upon the ground,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sits brooding near. He feeds the flame with sticks;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It brightens. Lo, a leaden crucifix", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the wall! These heathen eyes, though dim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Have seen the white man’s God and cling to Him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lest on the sunset trail slow feet should err.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But look again. From yonder bed of fur", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the wall a white man strives to rise.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He lifts his head, with yearning sightless eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gropes for the light. A mass of golden hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Falls round the face that sickness and despair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Somehow make old, albeit he is young.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His weak voice, stumbling to the mongrel tongue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of traders, flings a question to the squaw:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“You saw no Black Robe? Tell me what you saw!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And she, brief-spoken as her race, replies:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Heaped snow⁠—sharp stars⁠—a kiote on the rise.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The blind youth huddles moaning in the furs.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The firewood spits and pops, the boiled pot purrs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sputters. On this little isle of sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sea of winter silence presses round⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One feels it like a menace. Now the crone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dips out a cup of soup, and having blown", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon it, takes it to the sick man there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bids him eat. With wild, unseeing stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He turns upon her: “Why are they so long?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I can not eat! I’ve done a mighty wrong;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It chokes me! Oh no, no, I must not die", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the Black Robe comes!” His feeble cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sinks to a whisper. “Tell me, did they go⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Your kinsmen?” “They went south before the snow.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“And will they tell the Black Robe?” “They will tell.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The crackling of the faggots for a spell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seems very loud. Again the sick man moans", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, struggling with the weakness in his bones,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would gain his feet, but can not. “Go again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tell me that you see the bulks of men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dim in the distance there.” The squaw obeys;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Returns anon to crouch beside the blaze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Numb-fingered and a-shudder from the night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The vacant eyes that hunger for the light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are turned upon her: “Tell me what you saw!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or maybe snowshoes sounded up the draw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quick, tell me what you saw and heard out there!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Heaped snow⁠—sharp stars⁠—big stillness everywhere.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "One clutching at thin ice with numbing grip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cries while he hopes; but when his fingers slip,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He takes the final plunge without a sound.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So sinks the youth now, hopeless. All around", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The winter silence presses in; the walls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grow vague and vanish in the gloom that crawls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Close to the failing fire. The Piegans sleep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Night hovers midway down the morning steep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sick man drowses. Nervously he starts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And listens; hears no sound except his heart’s", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that weird murmur brooding stillness makes.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But stealthily upon the quiet breaks⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Vague as the coursing of the hearer’s blood⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A muffled, rhythmic beating, thud on thud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That, growing nearer, deepens to a crunch.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, hungry for the distance, snowshoes munch", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crusted leagues of Winter, stride by stride.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A camp-dog barks; the hollow world outside", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brims with the running howl of many curs.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now wide-awake, half risen in the furs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The youth can hear low voices and the creak", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of snowshoes near the lodge. His thin, wild shriek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Startles the old folk from their slumberings:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“He comes! The Black Robe!” Now the door-flap swings,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And briefly one who splutters Piegan, bars", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The way, then enters. Now the patch of stars", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is darkened with a greater bulk that bends", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the lintel. “Peace be with you, friends!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And peace with him herein who suffers pain!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So speaks the second comer of the twain⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A white man by his voice. And he who lies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the wall, with empty, groping eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Turned to the speaker: “There can be no peace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For me, good Father, till this gnawing cease⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gnawing of a great wrong I have done.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The big man leans above the youth: “My son⁠—”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Grown husky with the word, the deep voice breaks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for a little spell the whole man shakes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with the clinging cold) “⁠—have faith and hope!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis often nearest dawn when most we grope.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Does not the Good Book say, Who seek shall find?”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“But, Father, I am broken now and blind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I have sought, and I have lost the way.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To which the stranger: “What would Jesus say?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hark! In the silence of the heart ’tis said⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By their own weakness are the feeble sped;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The humblest feet are surest for the goal;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The blind shall see the City of the Soul.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lay down your burden at His feet tonight.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now while the fire, replenished, bathes in light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The young face scrawled with suffering and care,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flinging ironic glories on the hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And glinting on dull eyes that once flashed blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sick one tells the story of old Hugh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To him whose face, averted from the glow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still lurks in gloom. The winds of battle blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Once more along the steep. Again one sees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rescue from the fury of the Rees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The graybeard’s fondness for the gay lad; then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The westward march with Major Henry’s men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With all that happened there upon the Grand.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“And so we hit the trail of Henry’s band,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The youth continues; “for we feared to die:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dread of shame was ready with the lie", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We carried to our comrades. Hugh was dead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And buried there beside the Grand, we said.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could any doubt that what we said was true?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They even praised our courage! But I knew!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The nights were hell because I heard his cries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw the crows a-pecking at his eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The kiotes tearing at him. O my God!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I tried and tried to think him under sod;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But every time I slept it was the same.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then one night⁠—I lay awake⁠—he came!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I say he came⁠—I know I hadn’t slept!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid a light like rainy dawn, he crept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out of the dark upon his hands and knees.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wound he got that day among the Rees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like red fire. A snarl of bloody hair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hung round the eyes that had a pleading stare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And down the ruined face and gory beard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Big tear-drops rolled. He went as he appeared,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Trailing a fog of light that died away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I grew old before I saw the day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O Father, I had paid too much for breath!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Devil traffics in the fear of death,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And may God pity anyone who buys", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What I have bought with treachery and lies⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This rat-like gnawing in my breast!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“I knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I couldn’t rest until I buried Hugh;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so I told the Major I would go", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Atkinson with letters, ere the snow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had choked the trails. Jules wouldn’t come along;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He didn’t seem to realize the wrong;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He called me foolish, couldn’t understand.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I rode alone⁠—not south, but to the Grand.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Daylong my horse beat thunder from the sod,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Accusing me; and all my prayers to God", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed flung in vain at bolted gates of brass.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the night the wind among the grass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hissed endlessly the story of my shame.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“I do not know how long I rode: I came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the Grand at last, and found the place,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And it was empty. Not a sign or trace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was left to show what end had come to Hugh.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And oh that grave! It gaped upon the blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A death-wound pleading dumbly for the slain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I filled it up and fled across the plain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And somehow came to Atkinson at last.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there I heard the living Hugh had passed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the river northward in the Fall!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O Father, he had found the strength to crawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That long, heart-breaking distance back to life,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though Jules had taken blanket, steel and knife,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I, his trusted comrade, had his gun!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“They said I’d better stay at Atkinson,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because old Hugh was surely hunting me,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White-hot to kill. I did not want to flee", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or hide from him. I even wished to die,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If so this aching cancer of a lie", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might be torn out forever. So I went,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As eager as the homesick homeward bent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In search of him and peace. But I was cursed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For even when his stolen rifle burst", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And spewed upon me this eternal night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I might not die as any other might;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But God so willed that friendly Piegans came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To spare me yet a little unto shame.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O Father, is there any hope for me?”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Great hope indeed, my son!” so huskily", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The other answers. “I recall a case", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like yours⁠—no matter what the time and place⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas somewhat like the story that you tell;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Each seeking and each sought, and both in hell;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But in the tale I mind, they met at last.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The youth sits up, white-faced and breathing fast:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“They met, you say? What happened? Quick! Oh quick!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“The old man found the dear lad blind and sick", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And both forgave⁠—’twas easy to forgive⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For oh we have so short a time to live⁠—”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereat the youth: “Who’s here? The Black Robe’s gone!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose voice is this?”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The gray of winter dawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now creeping round the door-flap, lights the place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And shows thin fingers groping for a face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deep-scarred and hoary with the frost of years", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereover runs a new springtide of tears.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“O Jamie, Jamie, Jamie⁠—I am Hugh!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There was no Black Robe yonder⁠—Will I do?”", "indent": 0 } ] ] }