Here we watched the evening fall:
O’er Wolf Mountain sunset made,
Huge, a rhododendron, rayed
Round the sun’s cloud-calyxed ball.
Then through scents of herb and soil,
To the mining-camp we turned,
In the twinkling dusk discerned
With its white-washed homes of toil.
. . . . . . . . . .
Ah, those nights!—We wandered forth
On some haunted mountain path,
When the moon rose late; and rathe
The large stars, sowed south and north,
Splashed with gold the purple skies;
And the milky zodiac,
Rolled athwart the belted black,
Seemed a path to Paradise.
And we walked or tarried till,
In the valley-land beneath,
Like the vapor of a breath
Breathed in frost, arose the still
Architecture of the mist:
And the moon-dawn’s necromance
Touched the mist and made it glance
Terraced pearl and amethyst.
Then around us, sharp and brusque,
Night’s shrill insects strident strung
Fairy viols that buzzed and sung,
Pixy music of the dusk.
And we seemed to hear soft sighs,
And hushed steps of ghostly things,
Fluttered feet and rustled wings
All around us. Fireflies,
Gleaming in the tangled glade,
Seemed the eyes of warriors,
Stealing under watching stars
To some phantom ambuscade;
To the tepees there that gloomed,
Wigwams of the mist, that slept
By the woodland side, whence crept
Shadowy Shawnees moonbeam-plumed.