THE JUGGLER
You’ve seen him balanced with his staff, Far up—and giving death the laugh? The Juggler—confident and proud Above the gaping, breathless crowd! So in the gathering storm, he swayed— The Forest Juggler—unafraid! Schooled by the blasts of centuries, Proudly he looked on lesser trees, Rearing his mighty head on high Against the red-streaked western sky. Then broke the gale—the clouds unlocked, And such a wind as never rocked His stalwart trunk, now made him dance. He swayed in ancient confidence Till once he reached—too far! Then all His shaft went toppling to the fall, With grinding boughs and crunch and thud. Upripped those gorgon-roots, the mud— Wide-flung, left but a crater-hole Where it had towered—that giant bole! The wind has gone upon his way, A patch of sky shows where he lay— Who juggled long and fearlessly Until a greater came than he.
NATURE’S TOTEMS
With tools rough-wrought the untaught scribe Carved deep the glory of his tribe— Amazing monsters—grotesque, stiff, With curious, quaint hieroglyph. Brave in barbaric dyes, his scroll— So left the scribe his totem-pole.
Though rotted, broken, scattered far These totems of the savage are, Proud totems—vastly mightier, The lineaments of Nature bear.
The mountain’s twisted ribs of rock Laid bare, proclaim the earthquake shock, And how it was through turmoil great Exalted to its high estate; An upturned fossil on the plain Reverts to Dinosaurian reign, Another shows his prowess gone— The advent of the Mastodon; The lopside fir is eloquent Of battling winters nobly spent; The shell upon the mountain side Betrays an ancient ocean’s tide; These are the totems, cryptic, terse, We find in Nature’s universe.