We give him a fish instead of a serpent,
Ere folding: the hands to be and abide
Forever and aye in dust at his side?
Look at the roses saluting each other;
Look at the herds all at peace on the plain—
Man, and man only makes war on his brother,
And dotes in his heart on his peril and pain—
Shamed by the brutes that go down on the plain.
Why should you envy a moment of pleasure
Some poor fellow mortal has wrung from it all?
Oh! could you look into his life's broken measure—
Look at the dregs—at the wormwood and gall—
Look at his heart hung with crepe like a pall—
Look at the skeletons down by his hearthstone—
Look at his cares in their merciless sway,
I know you would go and say tenderly, lowly,
Brother, my brother, for aye and a day,
Lo! Lethe is washing the blackness away.
IN THE GREAT EMERALD LAND
A morn in Oregon! The kindled camp
Upon the mountain brow that broke below
In steep and grassy stairway to the damp
And dewy valley, snapp'd and flamed aglow
With knots of pine. Above the peaks of snow,
With under-belts of sable forests, rose
And flash'd in sudden sunlight. To and fro
And far below, in lines and winding rows,
The herders drove their bands, and broke the deep repose.
I heard their shouts like sounding hunter's horn,
The lowing herds made echoes far away ;
When lo! the clouds came driving in with morn
Toward the sea, as fleeing from the day.
The valleys flll'd with curly clouds. They lay
Below, a level'd sea that reach'd and roll'd
And broke like breakers of a stormy bay
Against the grassy shingle fold on fold,
So like a splendid ocean, snowy white and cold.
