The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-11-24
Tor the New Northwest.
To n Poet.
BY u. 81. Il.

BY i. 81. IL
Blue and gold-cxquisitc
Gilt-edged and softly tinted.
Read the Reviews? ? All! Genius
PalpabIe, hidden and limited"
But look in vain for my hero.
False hearts and treacherous wiles
Come out, like "Ia Mode" of the fashion,
Dressed in new spring styles.
o, Poet, sing OF my hero
In cadence and strophes and chimes,
or, by the soul Of the MUSES.,
You die in spite Of rhymes!
Lot your song be sudden and plaintive,
Fearless and faltering not;
Like the mystical cry of the panther
That answers the hunters shot,
Let your numbers be fierce, but subtitle,
TIL into my soul they creep
Like lost and roaming echoes,
And listen, and wildly weep.
No more Of the passions of men =
Oftheir fabulous VOWS of love
Sound US no note Of despair
No wall of a mateless dove
For doves will wall for themselves,
And men will do their mourning
But the hills and rocks speak not
Neither in pride or scorning;
Men are tickle and false,
And women grow old and cold,
But a cloud will always blush
when dipped in the sunsets gold.
No more In volumes Olden
Culling and coming all day,
Take your winged steed to yOn mountain
And loosen him there to play;
o, mountain, rise up for my Poet
And show him your grandest peaks;
let your bird from the bright cliffs call hin
While she circles and wildly shrieks.
Let him sing Of the homeless hero
Who lOitered around your base,
When man, in a spacious freedom,
Lived for the camp and the chase;
Sing Of the heightened pack trains
That wound through thy solitudes-
Oftheir songs that never echoed
In the wildness Of other woods.
Up high on the rounded summit
\ stiH white cover is spread,
And a frozen cloud hangs over,
still and stark as the dead;
ON Won point the trees bend over
And crouch from the tyrannOus wind,
TIL lac ,ighs in the valley repentful
And walls, "peccavi, sinned -
In the depths stiffness is waiting
\ sIumberous stiffness that nils
The air with dull oppression,
And the heart with icy thrills.
Sing OF weary miner,
Who long, long years ago
Trversed these lonesome gulches
And climbed 10 a summit OF snow;
In the dead and lonely silence
He lighted his red campfire,
And it warmed the heart of the forest,
Reaching up higher and higher,
And the gray side Of the mountain
Comes forth like scenic show,
With a group of pantomime shadows
waaIering to and fro;
And the sound Of the sea comes to him
Like thunders OF distant cars;
The brook leaps up from the canyon
And catches the listless stars;
The campfire SINNERS beside him
In a rhyme with the cricket's drone;
His meat is crlsped on the embers,
? And hc drinks his tea alone.
4 CHASTITY skull orthe red man
SHINES out ifnill the ltIu ltsAffN AAfAff
Alas, and alas, poor miner,
Thine own is as smooth and bare!
The mad blaze snaps at the pine bOughs
That quiver and waver and fall,
/ And his shadow leans over the dead logs,
LcngthCned and crooked and tall.
From the wild and gloomy forest
Comes the cry Of a lonesome owl;
From the dark ravine up-breaking
The threat of a savage growl;
But his rife stands by the fr tree
In his belt knife and brace;
80 he drcamily looks in the campfire,
And "A smile plays over his face.
Down i'm the gulch he has sifted
Some sand that is fine and black
There is gold lying under the boulder
And under the rivers track.
Now down on the side Of the mountain
He strays in rambling quest
ora level nook by fir tree
To spread his lonely rest.
In dreams sweet visions come to him
More bright than the gold below,
For he dreams that the woman is true
Who was false long years ago;
He hears her loving voice,
And they pledge their vows anew,
And hand i'm hand the dreamland
They wander through and through.
-, Poet sing OF my hero;
He is weary and homeless and old,
And he sleeps 10y his dying campfire,
Dreaming Of Love and gold.
In his wild-woods shrill note echoes,
? And a dead leaf drops from the stem,
And a shadow stirs under the fir tree
Go, sing thou in numbers OF them.
B PoETLAND.