king.

The hot stockade. No water left.
The fierce attack. All hope bereft
The powder-grimed defender.
The war-cry and the groan of pain.
All day the slanting arrow-rain
Of fire from the corn and cane.
The stern defence, but all in vain.
And then at last--surrender.

But not for Bryan's!--no! too well
Must they remember what befell
At Ruddle's and take warning.
So thought we as, all dust and sweat,
We rode with faces forward set,
And came to Station Boone while yet
An hour from noon ... We had not let
Our horses rest since morning.

Here Ellis met us with his men.
They did not stop nor tarry then.
That little band of lions;
But setting out at once with aid,
Right well you know how unafraid
They charged the Indian ambuscade,
And through a storm of bullets made
Their entrance into Bryan's.

And that is all I have to tell.
No more the Huron's hideous yell
Sounds to assault and slaughter.--
Perhaps to us some praise is due;
But we are men, accustomed to
Such dangers, which we often woo.
Much more is due our women who
Brought to the Station--water.

On the Jellico Spur of the Cumberlands

TO J. FOX, JR.

You remember how the mist,
When we climbed to Devil's Den,
Pearly in the mountain glen,
And above us, amethyst,
Throbbed or circled? then away,
Through the wildwoods opposite,
Torn and scattered, morning-lit,
Vanished into dewy gray?--
Vague as in romance we saw,
From the fog, one riven trunk,
Talon-like with branches shrunk,
Thrust a monster dragon claw.
And we climbed for hours through
The dawn-dripping Jellicoes,
To a wooded rock that shows
Undulating leagues of blue
Summits; mountain-chains that lie
Dark with forests; bar on bar,
Ranging their irregular
Purple peaks beneath a sky
Soft as slumber. Range on range
Billow their enormous spines,
Where the rocks and priestly pines
Sit eternal, without change.
We were sons of Nature then:
She had taken us to her,
Signalized by brier and burr,
Something more to her than men:
Pupils of her lofty moods,
From her bloom-anointed looks,
Wisdom of no man-made books
Learned we in those solitudes:
How the seed supplied the flower;
How the sapling held the oak;
How within the vine awoke
Th