The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1876-08-17
Bayarl Taylor's Trayesty on Joaouin Mil
Ter.


Bayard Taylor's new book, 1.-THE Echo Club" con
tains the following. Any one who has read joaquin
Miller. will recognize the cleverness of the lines be
low
THE FATE OF THE FRoNTIERsMAN.
That whisky Jug! For dry or wet
My tale will need its help, you bet!.
Me.made for the desert .she and l.
Though life was loathsome, and love;a le..
And she gazed on me with her glorious eye.
But all the same-I let her die
For Why? There barely water for one
In the small canteen, and of provender nonen
A splendid snake with an emerald scale
Slid before US along the trail, 4
with famished parrot pecking its head;
And, Selling huge and dark brown rock
IN hef dark brown hands, as you crush crock,
With the dark brown rock she crushed its dead
But ere her teeth in its flesh could meet,
laid her as dead as the snake at my feet,
And grabbed the snake for myself to eat.
The plain stretched wide, from side to side,
As bare and blistered and cracked and dried
AS moocasn sole O.. buffalo hide.
And my throat grew hot as walked the trail
My blood in q sizzle, my muscles dry,
A crimson glare in my glorious eye.
And felt my sinews wither and fail,
Like one who has laviShed, for fifty nights,
His pile i'll hell of gambling delights,
And is kicked at dawn from bottle and bed,
And sent to the gulches without red
There was no penguin to pick pluck
No armadilio's throat to be stuck,
Not even a billberry's ball of blue
To slush my tongue with its indigo dew,
And the dry, brown palm trees ratified and roared
Like the swish and swlzzle of Walkers sword.
L was nigh rubbed out when far AWAY
A shanty, baked in the furnace of day,
And petered on, for an hour or more,
Till dropped, like NANCY hound, at the DOOR
NO soul to be seen but basin stood
On the BENCH with mess of dubious food,
Stringy and doughty and lumpy and thick
AS the clay ere the flame has turned it to brick.
gobbled it up with furious fire,
A prairie squall of hungry DESIRE
And strength came back when, 10! scream
Closed my stomach and burst my dream
She stood before me, as 1.-the and tall
AS musqueet bush on the Pinos WALL
Fierce as the zuni panthers leap,
Fair as the slim Apache sheep.
A lariat draped her broad brown hips
And she stood and glared with parted lips
While piercing stitches and maddening shoots
Ran through my body, from brain to boots
would have clasped her, but ere could
She flung her hairs tempestuous hood,
And screamed in voice like tiger-cat's;
you We gone and EFT up my pizen for rats!''
My blood grew limp and my hair grew hard
AS the steely tail of the desert pard
sank at her feet. convulsed and pale,
And kissed in my anguish her brown toe-nai
You may rip the cloud from the frescoed sky
Or tear the man from his place in the moon,
Fur from the buzzard and plumes from the coon
But you can't tear me from the truth cry
That life is loathsome and love a lie.
She lifted me up to her bare brown face;
She cracked my ribs in her brown embrace
And there in the shanty, side by side,
Each on the others bosom died.
She'snow the mistress of Buffalo Bill
Andpure as the heart of a lilly still;
While have killed all who care for me,
And I'm just as lonely as can be;
SO pass the whisky-wen have a Spree,