| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
Frontier Ballads
Upon each broad and stalwart back
Is strapped a huge and weighty pack,
Their coarse and ragged hair
Streams back from brows whose dusky stain
Is dyed by blizzard, wind, and rain,
They are a fearsome pair;
Lone pilgrims of the coteau vast,
They seem like cursed souls, outcast
To roam forever there.
Yet hark! Adown the cold wind flung,
What voice of merriment gives tongue?
'Tis human laughter, deep and strong,
And now, all suddenly, a song
Rings o'er the prairie lone!
A chanson old, whose rythm oft
Has lingered on the breezes soft
That kiss the storied Rhone,
Or floated up from lips of love
To some dark casement, high above
The streets of Avignon,
Where lovely eyes, all maidenly,
Glance shyly forth, that they may see
What lover comes to serenade
Ere drawing back the latticed shade
To toss a red rose down.
What fickle fate, what strange mischance
Has brought this song of sunny France
To ride upon the blizzard crest
That mantles o'er the wild Northwest?
To find its echoes sweet
In barren butte and stark cliff-side,
Whose beetling summits override
The fierce Missouri's murky tide;
To rouse the scurrying feet
Of antelope and lean coyote;
To hear its last, long, witching note,
Caught in the hoot-owl's dismal throat,
Sweep by on pinions fleet. |
||
|
|
||
|
48 |
||