Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt I knew thee in my glorious youth, I loved thy vast face, white as truth, I stood where thunderbolts were wont To smite thy Titan-fashioned front, And heard rent mountains rock and roll. I saw thy lightning’s gleaming rod Reach forth and write on heaven’s scroll The awful autograph of God! ♦ ‘cons’ replaced with ‘eons’ * * * * * KIT CARSON’S RIDE. RUN? Now you bet you; I rather guess so. But he’s blind as a badger. Whoa, Paché boy, whoa! No, you wouldn’t think so to look at his eyes, But he is badger blind, and it happened this wise;―― We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels, Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride. “Forty full miles if a foot to ride, Forty full miles if a foot and the devils Of red Camanches are hot on the track When once they strike it. Let the sun go down Soon, very soon,” muttered bearded old Revels As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back, Holding fast to his lasso; then he jerked at his steed, And sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around, And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground,―― Then again to his feet and to me, to my bride, While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud, His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud, And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed,―― “Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed, And speed, if ever for life you would speed; And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride, For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire, And feet of wild horses, hard flying before I hear like a sea breaking hard on the shore; While the buffalo come like the surge of the sea, Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire.” We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein, Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again, And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheer, Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold, Cast aside the catenas red and spangled with gold, And gold-mounted Colts, true companions for years, Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a breath And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse. Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall, Not a kiss from my bride, not a look or low call Of love-note or courage, but on o’er the plain So steady and still, leaning low to the mane, With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein, Rode we on, rode we three, rode we gray nose and nose, Reaching long, breathing loud, like a creviced wind blows, Yet we spoke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer, There was work to be done, there was death in the air, And the chance was as one to a thousand for all.