| |
| THE SHADES of evening closed around | |
| The boundless prairies of the west, | |
| As, grouped in sadness on the ground, | |
| A band of pilgrims leaned to rest: | |
| Upon the tangled weeds were laid | 5 |
| The mother and her youngest born, | |
| Who slept, while others watched and prayed, | |
| And thus the weary night went on. | |
| |
| Thick darkness shrouded earth and sky,— | |
| When on the whispering winds there came | 10 |
| The Teton’s shrill and thrilling cry, | |
| And heaven was pierced with shafts of flame! | |
| The sun seemed rising through the haze, | |
| But with an aspect dread and dire: | |
| The very air appeared to blaze!— | 15 |
| O God! the Prairie was on fire! | |
| |
| Around the centre of the plain | |
| A belt of flame retreat denied,— | |
| And, like a furnace, glowed the train | |
| That walled them in on every side: | 20 |
| And onward rolled the torrent wild,— | |
| Wreaths of dense smoke obscured the sky! | |
| The mother knelt beside her child, | |
| And all,—save one,—shrieked out, “We die!” | |
| |
| “Not so!” he cried.—“Help!—Clear the sedge! | 25 |
| Strip bare a circle to the land!” | |
| That done, he hastened to its edge, | |
| And grasped a rifle in his hand: | |
| Dried weeds he held beside the pan, | |
| Which kindled at a flash the mass! | 30 |
| “Now fire fight fire!” he said, as ran | |
| The forkèd flames among the grass. | |
| |
| On three sides then the torrent flew, | |
| But on the fourth no more it raved! | |
| Then large and broad the circle grew, | 35 |
| And thus the pilgrim band was saved! | |
| The flames receded far and wide,— | |
| The mother had not prayed in vain: | |
| God had the Teton’s arts defied! | |
| His scythe of fire had swept the plain! | 40 |
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