American poetry -- 19th century; American poetry -- 20th century
Three suns had rode their circle home
Beyond the desert’s rim,
And turned their star-herds loose to roam
The ranges high and dim;
Yet up and down and ’round and ’cross
Bob pounded, weak and wan,
For pride still glued him to his hawse
And glory drove him on.
“_Oh, glory be to me,” sighs he.
“He kaint be drug to death,
But now I know beyond a doubt
Them heroes I have read about
Was only fools that stuck it out
To end of mortal breath._”
’Way high up the Mogollons
A prospect man did swear
That moon dreams melted down his bones
And hoisted up his hair:
A ribby cow-hawse thundered by,
A lion trailed along,
A rider, ga’nt but chin on high,
Yelled out a crazy song.
“_Oh, glory be to me!” cries he,
“And to my noble noose!
Oh, stranger, tell my pards below
I took a rampin’ dream in tow,
And if I never lay him low,
I’ll never turn him loose!_”
THE COYOTE[45]
Trailing the last gleam after,
In the valleys emptied of light,
Ripples a whimsical laughter
Under the wings of the night,
Mocking the faded west airily,
Meeting the little bats merrily,
Over the mesas it shrills
To the red moon on the hills.
Mournfully rising and waning,
Far through the moon-silvered land
Wails a weird voice of complaining
Over the thorns and the sand.
Out of blue silences eerily,
On to the black mountains wearily,
Till the dim desert is crossed,
Wanders the cry, and is lost.
Here by the fire’s ruddy streamers,
Tired with our hopes and our fears,
We inarticulate dreamers
Hark to the song of our years.
Up to the brooding divinity
Far in that sparkling infinity
Cry our despair and delight,
Voice of the Western night!
_Marguerite Wilkinson_
Marguerite Ogden Bigelow was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, November
15, 1883. She attended Northwestern University and married James G.
Wilkinson in 1909.
_In Vivid Gardens_ (1911) is a mixture of original moods and
derivative manners. The later _Bluestone_ (1920) is a much riper
collection; a book of lyrics in which the author has made many
experiments in the combination of rhythmical tunes and verbal music.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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