BY SCARLET TORCH AND BLADE
Oh would you know the meaning of that lazy yellow haze,
Why the sun's a scarlet pinwheel in the late September days,
Why the thirsty earth's a-drowsing 'neath a lowering panoply
From 'Frisco to Seattle—from the Rockies to the sea?
For the skirmish that they're having up the Clear Creek canyon there
Is but one of all the flare-ups that are burning everywhere.
And you'll know them—oh, you'll know them when a decade's come and gone,
And the lifeless bark has fallen from those trunks now pale and wan,
And their ghostly, gray battalions in their long unbroken lines,
Stalk the ridges, rising, falling—ghosts that once were firs and pines;
You will know them—you will know them when a score of years has run,
Faintly limned in mist, or gleaming—silver lances in the sun.
Why the sun's a scarlet pinwheel in the late September days,
Why the thirsty earth's a-drowsing 'neath a lowering panoply
From 'Frisco to Seattle—from the Rockies to the sea?
For the skirmish that they're having up the Clear Creek canyon there
Is but one of all the flare-ups that are burning everywhere.
And you'll know them—oh, you'll know them when a decade's come and gone,
And the lifeless bark has fallen from those trunks now pale and wan,
And their ghostly, gray battalions in their long unbroken lines,
Stalk the ridges, rising, falling—ghosts that once were firs and pines;
You will know them—you will know them when a score of years has run,
Faintly limned in mist, or gleaming—silver lances in the sun.
[9]
