THE RESCUE.
81
What was that rustling in the brake?
Does the dire Apache follow?
It was only the partridge of the rock
Scared from her sylvan hollow;—
Then on by crags where the tender lambs
Of the mountain sheep are hid;
Down streams that dark with pool and fall
Descend the rocks amid;
O'er sunny slopes whose blooms were gay
As a garden bed in spring,
With birds of every rainbow hue
Like flowers that had taken wing;—
We heard the whir of the rattlesnake;
The timid fawn we found;
The stag, disturbed in his cool recess,
Went by us with a bound;
The grizzly bear and the wildcat lurked
In cave and jungle dim;
The panther, waiting for his prey,
Couched on the pendent limb;—
I pressed the cross to my beating heart,
And with many a murmured prayer
We passed, unharmed, the serpent's coil,
Unharmed, the wild beast's lair.
At twilight, faint and chill and bruised,
And torn by flint and thorn,
On the edge of the plain, in the tule reeds,
We sank to rest, forlorn.
The vulture wheeled above the marsh;
We heard the gray wolf's cry;
Does the dire Apache follow?
It was only the partridge of the rock
Scared from her sylvan hollow;—
Then on by crags where the tender lambs
Of the mountain sheep are hid;
Down streams that dark with pool and fall
Descend the rocks amid;
O'er sunny slopes whose blooms were gay
As a garden bed in spring,
With birds of every rainbow hue
Like flowers that had taken wing;—
We heard the whir of the rattlesnake;
The timid fawn we found;
The stag, disturbed in his cool recess,
Went by us with a bound;
The grizzly bear and the wildcat lurked
In cave and jungle dim;
The panther, waiting for his prey,
Couched on the pendent limb;—
I pressed the cross to my beating heart,
And with many a murmured prayer
We passed, unharmed, the serpent's coil,
Unharmed, the wild beast's lair.
At twilight, faint and chill and bruised,
And torn by flint and thorn,
On the edge of the plain, in the tule reeds,
We sank to rest, forlorn.
The vulture wheeled above the marsh;
We heard the gray wolf's cry;
