East and West Poems

The Hawk's Nest

(Sierras)

We checked our pace,--the red road sharply rounding;

We heard the troubled flow

Of the dark olive depths of pines, resounding

A thousand feet below.

Above the tumult of the canon lifted,

The gray hawk breathless hung;

Or on the hill a winged shadow drifted

Where furze and thorn-bush clung;

Or where half-way the mountain side was furrowed

With many a seam and scar;

Or some abandoned tunnel dimly burrowed,--

A mole-hill seen so far.

We looked in silence down across the distant

Unfathomable reach:

A silence broken by the guide's consistent

And realistic speech.

"Walker of Murphy's blew a hole through Peters

For telling him he lied;

Then up and dusted out of South Hornitos

Across the long Divide.

"We ran him out of Strong's, and up through Eden,

And 'cross the ford below;

And up this canon (Peters' brother leadin'),

And me and Clark and Joe.

"He fou't us game: somehow, I disremember

Jest how the thing kem round;

Some say 'twas wadding, some a scattered ember

From fires on the ground.

"But in one minute all the hill below him

Was just one sheet of flame;

Guardin' the crest, Sam Clark and I called to him.

And,--well, the dog was game!

"He made no sign: the fires of hell were round him,

The pit of hell below.

We sat and waited, but never found him;

And then we turned to go.

"And then--you see that rock that's grown so bristly

With chaparral and tan--

Suthin' crep' out: it might hev been a grizzly,

It might hev been a man;

"Suthin' that howled, and gnashed its teeth, and shouted

In smoke and dust and flame;

Suthin' that sprang into the depths about it,

Grizzly or man,--but game!

"That's all. Well, yes, it does look rather risky,

And kinder makes one queer

And dizzy looking down. A drop of whiskey

Ain't a bad thing right here!"