FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>  
de! I don't wonder, my dear, you are properly crimson and dumb!" WHAT THE BULLET SANG O joy of creation To be! O rapture to fly And be free! Be the battle lost or won, Though its smoke shall hide the sun, I shall find my love,--the one Born for me! I shall know him where he stands, All alone, With the power in his hands Not o'erthrown; I shall know him by his face, By his godlike front and grace; I shall hold him for a space, All my own! It is he--O my love! So bold! It is I--all thy love Foretold! It is I. O love! what bliss! Dost thou answer to my kiss? O sweetheart! what is this Lieth there so cold? THE OLD CAMP-FIRE Now shift the blanket pad before your saddle back you fling, And draw your cinch up tighter till the sweat drops from the ring: We've a dozen miles to cover ere we reach the next divide. Our limbs are stiffer now than when we first set out to ride, And worse, the horses know it, and feel the leg-grip tire, Since in the days when, long ago, we sought the old camp-fire. Yes, twenty years! Lord! how we'd scent its incense down the trail, Through balm of bay and spice of spruce, when eye and ear would fail, And worn and faint from useless quest we crept, like this, to rest, Or, flushed with luck and youthful hope, we rode, like this, abreast. Ay! straighten up, old friend, and let the mustang think he's nigher, Through looser rein and stirrup strain, the welcome old camp-fire. You know the shout that would ring out before us down the glade, And start the blue jays like a flight of arrows through the shade, And sift the thin pine needles down like slanting, shining rain, And send the squirrels scampering back to their holes again, Until we saw, blue-veiled and dim, or leaping like desire, That flame of twenty years ago, which lit the old camp-fire. And then that rest on Nature's breast, when talk had dropped, and slow The night wind went from tree to tree with challenge soft and low! We lay on lazy elbows propped, or stood to stir the flame, Till up the soaring redwood's shaft our shadows danced and came, As if to draw us with the sparks, high o'er its unseen spire,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>  



Top keywords:
Through
 

twenty

 

looser

 
strain
 

stirrup

 

youthful

 

useless

 

spruce

 

friend

 

straighten


mustang

 
abreast
 

flushed

 
nigher
 
elbows
 

propped

 

challenge

 

soaring

 

sparks

 

unseen


redwood

 

shadows

 

danced

 

dropped

 

shining

 
slanting
 

scampering

 

squirrels

 

needles

 

arrows


flight

 

Nature

 
breast
 

desire

 

veiled

 

leaping

 

erthrown

 

stands

 

godlike

 

Foretold


BULLET
 
crimson
 

properly

 

creation

 

Though

 
battle
 

rapture

 
answer
 
horses
 

divide