Page:The Gold-Gated West.djvu/109

In the crescents of rivers, in hollows
Red-lipped in the strawberry time,
And the slope where the forest path follows
A brooklet's melodious rhyme,
On the sun-rippled knolls and the prairies,
Beloved of the wandering kine,
In the skirts of the woodlands that fairies
Embroider with rose and with vine,
There are tents, and the smoke that is curling
Above in the beautiful dome
Like a guardian spirit is furling
Soft wings o'er the temple of home.

And the axe of the woodman is ringing
All day in sylvestrian halls,
Where the chipmunk is playfully springing
And the bluejay discordantly calls;
As the red chips are fitfully flying
On the asters that sprinkle the moss;
Where the beauty of summer is dying,
And the sun lances glimmer across;
There's a bird that is spectrally knocking
On a pine that is withered and bare,
For the fir-top is trembling and rocking
In the blue of the clear upper air;
There's a crackling of fibre, the crashing
Of a century crushed at a blow,
While the fir trees are wringing and lashing
Their hands in a frenzy of woe.

A pheasant whirs up from the thicket
In the hush that comes after the fall,