VI.
Below the overhanging boughs
The oars laid idle at the last.
Yet long he look'd for hostile prows
From out the wood and down the stream.
They came not, and he came to dream
Pursuit abandon'd, danger past.
He fell'd the oak, he built a home
Of new-hewn wood with busy hand,
And said, "My wanderings are told."
And said, "No more by sea, by land,
Shall I break rest, or drift, or roam,
For I am worn, and I grow old."
And there, beside that surging tide,
Where gray waves meet, and wheel, and strike,
To sit and rest unto the end;
As if the strong man here had found
A sort of brother in this sea,—
This surging, sounding majesty
Of troubled water, so profound,
So sullen, strong, and lion-like,
So sinuous and foamy bound.
Hast seen Missouri cleave the wood
In sounding whirlpools to the sea?
What soul hath known such majesty?
What man stood by and understood?
By pleasant Omaha I stood,
Beneath a fringe of mailéd wood,
And watch'd the mighty waters heave,
And surge, and strike, and wind, and weave
And make strange sounds and mutterings,
As if of dark unutter'd things.
By pleasant high-built Omaha
I stand. The waves beneath me run
All stain'd and yellow, dark and dun,
And deep as death's sweet mystery,—
A thousand Tibers roll'd in one.
I count on other years. I draw
The curtain from the scenes to be.
I see another Rome. I see
A Cæsar tower in the land,
And take her in his iron hand.
I see a throne, a king, a crown,
A high-built capital thrown down.
I see my river rise ...
Away!
The world's cold commerce of to-day
Demands some idle flippant theme;
And I, your minstrel, must sit by,
And harp along the edge of morn,
And sing and celebrate to please
The multitude, the mob, and these
They know not pearls from yellow corn.
Yea, idly sing or silent dreàm;
My harp, my hand is yours, but I—
My soul moves down that sounding stream.
Adieu, dun, mighty stream, adieu!
Adown thine wooded walls, inwrought
With rose of Cherokee and vine,
Was never heard a minstrel's note,
And none would heed a song of mine.
I find expression for my thought
In other themes.... List! I have seen
A grizzly sporting on the green
Of west sierras with a goat,
And finding pastime all day through....
O sounding, swift Missouri, born
Of Rocky Mountains, and begot
On bed of snow at birth of morn,
Of thunder-storms and elements
That reign where puny man comes not,
With fountain-head in fields of gold,
And wide arms twining wood and wold,
And everlasting snowy tents,—
I hail you from the Orients.
Shall I return to you once more?
Shall take occasion by the throat
And thrill with wild Æolian note?
Shall sit and sing by your deep shore?
Shall shape a reed and pipe of yore
And wake old melodies made new,
And thrill thine leaf-land through and through?