Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/288

But I look in vain for my hero.
False hearts and treacherous wiles
Come out, like "La Mode" of the fashion,
Dressed in new spring styles.
O Poet, sing of my hero
In cadence and strophes and chimes,
Or, by the soul of the Muses,
You die in spite of rhymes!

Let your song be sudden and plaintive,
Fearless and faltering not;
Like the mystical cry of the panther
That answers the hunter's shot,
Let your numbers be fierce, but subtile,
Till into my soul they creep
Like lost and roaming echoes,
And I listen, and wildly weep!

No more of the passions of men; —
Of their fabulous vows of love
Sound us no note of despair —
No wail of mateless dove—
For doves will wail for themselves,
And men will do their mourning:
But the hills and rocks speak not
Neither in pride or in scorning;
Men are fickle and false
And women grow old and cold,
But a cloud will always blush
When dipped in the sunset's gold.

No more in volumes olden
Culling and conning all day,
Take your winged steed to yon mountain
And loosen him there to play;
O mountain, rise up for my Poet
And show him your grandest peaks;
Let your bird from the bright cliffs call him,
While she circles and wildly shrieks.