The Return of the Ghost
PAGE [94]
1. Not long Hugh let the lust of vengeance gnaw
Note that the first line of the division of the poem rhymes with the last line of the former. How often does this happen in the poem? This device keeps the mind on a stretch and so keeps interest alive. The same device is often used by the author in passing from one paragraph to the next.
5. I can not rest; for I am but the ghost etc.
The old obsession that he actually died by the Grand, though here used less seriously than in other places.
12. With such a blizzard of a face for me!
The epithet reveals how Hugh’s gray “ruined face” impressed men.
13. For he went grayer like a poplar tree, etc.
The simile of the face of Glass in mentioning Jamie’s treachery and the poplar tree shaken by the first wind of a storm is true to nature, for a poplar turns the gray side of its leaves when shaken.
Define: fend, kenneled.
PAGE [95]
1. From where the year’s last keelboat hove in view
The keelboat, shaped with keel and hence so called, from forty to sixty feet long, carrying as much as sixty tons and pulled by fifteen to twenty-five men, was used on the Missouri and other navigable rivers before the day of the steamboat.
10. Until the tipsy Bourgeois bawled for Glass
The head of a trading post in the fur trading period was called Bourgeois, a French word meaning tradesman.
12. The graybeard, sitting where the light was blear, etc.
The whole account of Hugh’s telling of this great tragedy is of the highest excellence. We already know that Hugh is a story teller; we have seen him composing this very tale (page [58]), and we know how his imagination sometimes carries him beyond the actual, as when he saw Jamie dead (page [60]). The effect of his face, with its changing expressions suiting all the moods associated with love and betrayal, his chanting songlike tones, is shown in the muscular responses of the listeners and their shudders when the story ends. The supreme touch comes when Hugh tells of the slaying of Jamie as if already done.
19. And his the purpose that is art’s, etc.
To centre attention on human experience at the crucial moment and so render it immortal.
20. Whereby men make a vintage of their hearts etc.
Turn sorrow into beauty. Is there comfort in a sad story well told?
PAGE [97]
Select the lines on this page that convey a sense of monotony.
16. Past where the tawny Titan gulps the cup
Titan, the Missouri.
22. And there old times came mightily on Hugh, etc.
Do you believe Hugh capable now of killing Jamie?
24. Some troubled glory of that wind-tossed hair
Hugh’s memory of Jamie is sad, not bitter.
Define: cutbank, wry, tawny.
PAGE [98]
2. So haunted with the blue of Jamie’s eyes, etc.
The blue is sad but not treacherous as once.
8. Past where the Cannon Ball and Heart come in
Locate the Cannon Ball and the Heart.
18. The chaining of the Titan. Drift ice ran.
The story of the freezing of the river is worth noting for its vividness, its alliterations and onomatopœia.
19. The wingéd hounds of Winter ceased to bay.
What were the “wingéd hounds”?
PAGE [99]
5. To wait the far-off Heraclean thaw,
Heraclean—Hercules. What chained Titan did Hercules release?
12. His purpose called him at the Big Horn’s mouth—
Locate the Big Horn. What purpose? Who was there?
18. And took the bare, foot-sounding solitude
Why “foot-sounding”?
22. He seemed indeed a fugitive from Death etc.
Another reference to Hugh’s fancy that he had actually died.
It gives added force to that fancy to make his frosted breath suggest a shroud.
24. Now the moon was young
Note the phase of the moon for later reference.
PAGE [100]
6. With Spring’s wild rage, the snow-born Titan girl, etc.
The Yellowstone is larger at the junction than is the Missouri.
Hence the Missouri is the Titan girl rushing into the arms of her lover. But in the winter with snow covering the ice, “A winding sheet was on the marriage bed.” Why “snow-born”?
15. Gray void seemed suddenly astir with wings etc.
Note onomatopœia in the lines indicating that snow begins to fall.
PAGE [101]
1. The bluffs loomed eerie, and the scanty trees
Describe the appearance of the trees.
15. The tumbling snowflakes sighing all around,
What associations brought Hugh a dream of boyhood?
18. The Southwind in the tousled apple trees
19. And slumber flowing from their leafy gloom.
These lines are an intentional “literary echoing” of one of the most beautiful of the Sapphic fragments,—fragment 4 in Bergk’s text.
Define: penumbral, susurrant.
PAGE [102]
The blizzard is a storm characteristic of the plains. It generally lasts three days, is terribly cold, and the whirling snow is blinding.
4. Black blindness grew white blindness
Indicating the slight difference between night and day.
Note in how few lines the poet pictures the passing of the day.
5. All being now seemed narrowed to a span, etc.
All else was shut from sight and to a degree from the mind.
PAGE [103]
7. As with the waning day the great wind fell.
The sudden cessation of the wind at the close of the third day of the storm is characteristic, as is also the intense cold. Forty degrees below zero is not unusual, often even fifty degrees.
10. When, heifer-horned, the maiden moon lies down
A reference to the maiden Diana, goddess of the moon.
How long was Hugh on this journey?
PAGE [104]
3. Yon sprawling shadow, pied with candle-glow etc.
Another of the gripping memory pictures. Can a man who dreams such a waking dream kill another, even one who has betrayed him, in cold blood?
21. Or was this but the fretted wraith of Hugh etc.
The feeling that he is a ghost comes to Hugh twice in this incident of finding the fort. His long journey, his weakened physical condition and his exhausted emotions combine to make life seem unreal.
PAGE [105]
14. Joy filled a hush twixt heart-beats like a bird; etc.
Joy rather than anger comes first in his feeling about Jamie.
That is significant.
PAGE [106]
7. “My God! I saw the Old Man’s ghost out there!”
Belief in ghosts was common among the trappers.
12–21. “Hugh strove to shout,” etc.
For the last time we see Hugh with the feeling that he is dead.
PAGE [108]
Are you surprised that Hugh does not kill Le Bon? Would you excuse the deed if he had?