Then in the dusk she wandered down the brook, Treading again the trackway trod of old, When she could hold her loved one in a look. The night was all unlike those nights of gold. Michael was gone, and all the April old, Withered and hidden. Life was full of ills; She flung her down and cried i’ the withered daffodils III The steaming river loitered like old blood On which the tugboat bearing Michael beat, Past whitened horse bones sticking in the mud. The reed stems looked like metal in the heat. Then the banks fell away, and there were neat, Red herds of sullen cattle drifting slow. A fish leaped, making rings, making the dead blood flow. Wormed hard-wood piles were driv’n in the river bank, The steamer threshed alongside with sick screws Churning the mud below her till it stank; Big gassy butcher-bubbles burst on the ooze. There Michael went ashore; as glad to lose One not a native there, the Gauchos flung His broken gear ashore, one waved, a bell was rung. The bowfast was cast off, the screw revolved, Making a bloodier bubbling; rattling rope Fell to the hatch, the engine’s tune resolved Into its steadier beat of rise and slope; The steamer went her way; and Michael’s hope Died as she lessened; he was there alone. The lowing of the cattle made a gradual moan. He thought of Mary, but the thought was dim; That was another life, lived long before. His mind was in new worlds which altered him. The startling present left no room for more. The sullen river lipped, the sky, the shore Were vaster than of old, and lonely, lonely. Sky and low hills of grass and moaning cattle only. But for a hut bestrewn with skulls of beeves, Round which the flies danced, where an Indian girl Bleared at him from her eyes’ ophthalmic eaves, Grinning a welcome; with a throaty skirl, She offered him herself; but he, the churl, Stared till she thought him fool; she turned, she sat, Scratched in her short, black hair, chewed a cigar-end, spat. Up, on the rise, the cattle bunched; the bulls Drew to the front with menace, pawing bold, Snatching the grass-roots out with sudden pulls, The distant cattle raised their heads; the wold Grew dusty at the top; a waggon rolled, Drawn by a bickering team of mules whose eyes Were yellow like their teeth and bared and full of vice. Down to the jetty came the jingling team, An Irish cowboy driving, while a Greek Beside him urged the mules with blow and scream. They cheered the Indian girl and stopped to speak. Then lifting her aloft they kissed her cheek, Calling to Michael to be quick aboard, Or they (they said) would fall from virtue, by the Lord. So Michael climbed aboard, and all day long He drove the cattle range, rise after rise, Dotted with limber shorthorns grazing strong, Cropping sweet-tasted pasture, switching flies; Dull trouble brooded in their smoky eyes. Some horsemen watched them. As the sun went down, The waggon reached the estancia builded like a town.