In all the glory of an Indian summer,
The lambent transmutations of October,
They started with the great ox-teams from Hastings
And trekked in a southwesterly direction,
Boring directly toward the fiery sunset.
Over the red grass prairies, shaggy-coated,
Without a goal the caravan proceeded;
Across the tablelands and rugged ridges,
Through the coarse grasses which the oxen breasted,
Blue-stem and bunch-grass, red as sea-marsh samphire.
Always the similar, soft undulations
Of the free-breathing earth in golden sunshine,
The hardy wind, and dun hawks flying over
Against the unstained firmament of heaven.
In the front wagon, under the white cover,
Stretched on her feather-bed and propped with pillows,
Never dismayed by the rude oxen’s scrambling,
The jolt of the tied wheel or brake or hold-back,
She lay, the leader of the expedition;
And with her burning eyes she took possession
Of the red waste,—for hers, and theirs, forever.
A wagon-top, rocking in seas of grasses,
A camp-fire on a prairie chartless, trackless,
A red spark under the dark tent of heaven.
Surely, they said, by day she saw a vision,
Though her exhausted strength could not impart it,—
Her breathing hoarser than the tired cattle.
When cold, bright stars the sunburnt days succeeded,
She took me in her bed to sleep beside her,—
A sturdy bunch of life, born on the ocean.
Always she had the wagon cover lifted
Before her face. The sleepless hours till daybreak
She read the stars.
“Plenty of time for sleep,” she said, “hereafter.”
She pointed out the spot on Macon prairie,
Telling my father that she wished to lie there.
“And plant, one day, an apple orchard round me,
In memory of woman’s first temptation,
And man’s first cowardice.”
That night, within her bosom,
I slept.
Before the morning
I cried because the breast was cold behind me.
Now, when the sky blazes like blue enamel,
Brilliant and hard over the blond cornfields,
And through the autumn days our wind is blowing
Like the creative breath of God Almighty—
Then I rejoice that offended love demanded
Such wide retreat, and such self-restitution;
Forged an explorer’s will in a frail woman,
Asked of her perfect faith and renunciation,
Hardships and perils, prophecy and vision,
The leadership of kin, and happy ending
On the red rolling land of Macon prairie.
STREET IN PACKINGTOWN
(CHICAGO)
In the gray dust before a frail gray shed,
By a board fence obscenely chalked in red,
A gray creek willow, left from country days,
Flickers pallid in the haze.
Beside the gutter of the unpaved street,
Tin cans and broken glass about his feet,
And a brown whisky bottle, singled out
For play from prosier crockery strewn about,
Twisting a shoestring noose, a Polack’s brat
Joylessly torments a cat.