A Cycle of the West quotes

On they pressed To where once more the river led them west; And every day the hot wind, puff on puff, Assailed them; every night they heard it sough In thickets prematurely turning sere.

Then came the sudden breaking of the year.

Abruptly in a waning afternoon The hot wind ceased, as fallen in a swoon With its own heat. For hours the swinking crews Had bandied scarcely credible good news Of clouds across the dim northwestward plain;

And now behold a rich man by the blaze Of his own hearth—a lord of steel and fire!

Not having, but the measure of desire Determines wealth.

Who gaining more, seek most, Are ever the pursuers of a ghost And lend their fleetness to the fugitive.

Still through a chink he saw the candle-glow, So like an eye that brazened out a wrong. And now there came a flight of muffled song, The rhythmic thudding of a booted heel That timed a squeaking fiddle to a reel!

How swiftly men forget! The spawning Earth Is fat with graves; and what is one man worth That fiddles should be muted at his fall?

He should have died and did not—that was all. Well, let the living jig it! He would turn Back to the night, the spacious unconcern Of wilderness that never played the friend.

His weak voice, stumbling to the mongrel tongue Of traders, flings a question to the squaw: “You saw no Black Robe? Tell me what you saw!” And she, brief-spoken as her race, replies:

“Heaped snow⁠—sharp stars⁠—a kiote on the rise.”

The blind youth huddles moaning in the furs. The firewood spits and pops, the boiled pot purrs And sputters. On this little isle of sound The sea of winter silence presses round— One feels it like a menace.

The vacant eyes that hunger for the light Are turned upon her: “Tell me what you saw! Or maybe snowshoes sounded up the draw. Quick, tell me what you saw and heard out there!”

“Heaped snow⁠—sharp stars⁠—big stillness everywhere.”

One clutching at thin ice with numbing grip Cries while he hopes; but when his fingers slip, He takes the final plunge without a sound. So sinks the youth now, hopeless. All around The winter silence presses in;

The gray of winter dawn Now creeping round the door-flap, lights the place And shows thin fingers groping for a face Deep-scarred and hoary with the frost of years Whereover runs a new springtide of tears.

“O Jamie, Jamie, Jamie⁠—I am Hugh! There was no Black Robe yonder⁠—Will I do?”

And there were some Who answered scornfully: “Not so they come; Their medicine is strong, their hearts are bad; A little part of what our fathers had They give us now, tomorrow come and take.

Great Spirit also made the rattlesnake And over him the big blue teepee set!

”

In sheltered valleys elk and bison roam All winter there, and in the spring are fat. We gave the road you wanted up the Platte. Make dust upon it then! But you have said The shortest way to find the yellow lead Runs yonder.

Any trail is short enough That leads your greedy people to the stuff That makes them crazy!

It is bad for you. I, Man Afraid, have spoken. Hetchetu!”

I saw a white Missouri flowing men, And knew old times could never be again This side of where the spirit sheds its load. Then let us give the Powder River road, For they will take it if we do not give.

Not all can die in battle. Some must live.

I think of those and what is best for those. Dakotas, I have spoken.”

My friends, if you would have these things tomorrow, Forget the way our fathers taught us all. As though you planned to live till mountains fall, Seek out all things men need and pile them high.

Be fat yourself and let the hungry die; Be warm yourself and let the naked freeze.

So shall you see the trail the white man sees. And when your teepee bulges to the peak, Look round you for some neighbor who is weak And take his little too. Dakotas, think!

Done! He asked for eighty—give him eighty-one! Then Fetterman, unwitting how the rim Of endless outer silence pressed on him And all his comrades, spoke: “With deference due To Captain Powell, Colonel, and to you, I claim command as senior captain here.”

So ever is the gipsy Danger dear To Courage; so the lusty woo and wed Their dooms, to father in a narrow bed A song against the prosing after-years.

And now the restive horses prick their ears And nicker to the bugle. Fours about, They rear and wheel to line. The hillsides shout Back to the party. Forward!

And yet, another sun made summer now In wild hearts given glebe-like to the plow Of triumph. So miraculously fed With slaughter, richly seeded with the dead, The many-fielded harvest throve as one.

And Red Cloud was the summer and the sun.

In many a camp, in three great tribal tongues, That magic name was thunder in the lungs Of warriors. Swift, apocalyptic light, It smote the zenith of the Red Man’s night With dazzling vision.

what a dust the victors raised When through the Cherish Hills by many a pass They crowded down upon the Greasy Grass To swell the hostile thousands waiting there.

Alas, how wide they made for Yellow Hair That highway leading to the shining Past!

Now came the end of waiting, for at last The scouring squadrons, jogging from the south, Had joined their comrades at the Rosebud’s mouth With doubtful news.

Old men would ponder in the wane of time That lifting vision and alluring cry:

“There never was a better day to die! Come on, Dakotas! Cowards to the rear!”

Some hundreds yonder held the net of fear Round Reno’s hill; but in the cloud that spread Along the valley where the fleet roan led Were thousands.

Presently he turned And panted home, an image of remorse; And Hanley, leaping from his winded horse, Lay down and went to work among the rest.

The wounded day bled ashen in the west;

The firing dwindled in the dusk and ceased; The frightened stars came peeking from the east To see what anguish moaned. The wind went down— A lull of death.

The wounded day bled ashen in the west; The firing dwindled in the dusk and ceased;

The frightened stars came peeking from the east To see what anguish moaned.

The wind went down— A lull of death.

And many fell and floundered. What of night From such a morning? For the hostile light Increased the fury, and the battle grew.

That day it seemed the very sun was Sioux.

The heat, the frenzy and the powder gas Wreaked torture. Men were chewing roots of grass For comfort ere the day had well begun. Bare to the grim mid-malice of the sun, The wounded raved for water.

South, east, the rat-like nibbling of the plow Had left them but a little way to go. The mountains of the never melting snow Walled up the west. Beyond the northern haze, There lay a land of unfamiliar ways, Dark tongues and alien eyes.

As waters keep Their wonted channels, yearning for the deep, The homeless rabble took the ancient road.

From bluff to bluff the Rosebud valley flowed Their miles of ponies; and the pine-clad heights Were sky-devouring torches in the nights Behind them, and a rolling gloom by day; And prairies, kindled all along the way, Bloomed balefully and blackened.

and when a dreary week Had brought him to the mouth of Bluestone Creek, Lo, Terry with another empty tale!

Broad as a road to ruin ran the trail Of driven pony herds, a livid scar Upon a vast cadaver, winding far

To eastward as the tallest hill might look. And thither pressed the horse and foot of Crook, Their pack mules, lighter for a greater speed, With scant provisions for a fortnight’s need Upon their saddles.