First fleering sally from a sugar-pine.
A flight of hills, and then a deep ravine
Hung with madrono boughs—the quail’s demesne;
A quick turn in the road, a wingèd whir,
And there he came with fluted whispering,
The captain of the chaparral, the king,
With nodding plume, with circumstance and stir,
And step of Carthaginian conqueror!
I climbed the canyon to a river-head,
And looking backward saw a splendor spread,