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(From Californian)
I LOOK along the valley’s edge, | |
| Where swings the white road like a swell | |
| Of surf, along a sea of sedge | |
| And black and brittle chaparral, | |
| And enters like an iron wedge | 5 |
| Drove in the mountain dun and brown, | |
| As if to split the hills in twain. | |
| Two clouds of dust roll o’er the plain, | |
| And men ride up and men ride down | |
| And hot men halt, and curse and shout, | 10 |
| And coming coursers plunge and neigh. | |
| The clouds of dust are rolled in one,— | |
| And horses, horsemen, where are they? | |
| Lo! through a rift of cloud and dun, | |
| Of desolation and of rout, | 15 |
| I see some long white daggers flash, | |
| I hear the sharp hot pistols crash, | |
| And curses loud in mad despair | |
| Are blended with a plaintive prayer | |
| That struggles through the dust and air. | 20 |
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| The cloud is lifting like a veil: | |
| The frantic curse, the plaintive wail | |
| Have died away; nor sound nor word | |
| Along the dusty plain is heard | |
| Save sounding of yon courser’s feet, | 25 |
| Who flies so fearfully and fleet, | |
| With gory girth and broken rein, | |
| Across the hot and trackless plain. | |
| Behold him, as he trembling flies, | |
| Look back with red and bursting eyes | 30 |
| To where his gory master lies. | |
| The cloud is lifting like a veil, | |
| But underneath its drifting sail | |
| I see a loose and black capote | |
| In careless heed far fly and float | 35 |
| So vulture-like above a steed | |
| Of perfect mould and passing speed. | |
| |
| Here lies a man of giant mould, | |
| His mighty right arm, perfect bare | |
| Save but its sable coat of hair, | 40 |
| Is clutching in its iron clasp | |
| A clump of sage, as if to hold | |
| The earth from slipping from his grasp; | |
| While, stealing from his brow, a stain | |
| Of purple blood and gory brain | 45 |
| Yields to the parched lips of the plain, | |
| Swift to resolve to dust again. | |
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| Lo! friend and foe blend here and there | |
| With dusty lips and trailing hair: | |
| Some with a cold and sullen stare, | 50 |
| Some with their red hands clasped in prayer. | |
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| Here lies a youth, whose fair face is | |
| Still holy from a mother’s kiss, | |
| With brow as white as alabaster, | |
| Save a tell-tale powder-stain | 55 |
| Of a deed and a disaster | |
| That will never come again, | |
| With their perils and their pain. | |
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| The tinkle of bells on the bended hills, | |
| The hum of bees in the orange trees, | 60 |
| And the lowly call of the beaded rills | |
| Are heard in the land as I look again | |
| Over the peaceful battle-plain. | |
| Murderous man from the field has fled, | |
| Fled in fear from the face of his dead. | 65 |
| He battled, he bled, he ruled a day,— | |
| And peaceful Nature resumes her sway. | |
| And the sward where yonder corses lie, | |
| When the verdant season shall come again, | |
| Shall greener grow than it grew before; | 70 |
| Shall again in sun-clime glory vie | |
| With the gayest green in the tropic scene, | |
| Taking its freshness back once more | |
| From them that despoiled it yesterday. | |
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