The
circling sun
His morning race has fully run;
A
waving hand
Signals above the brief command
That sight and sense will understand,—
And open swings the desert land!
A shot! A hundred, thousand more
The grassy meadows echo o’er;
A shout! From countless throats a
shout,
On rolling wings leaps madly out;
A yell, a raging roar, that flies
On bounding winds o’er hill and
glen,
And ’round the land electrifies
A thousand living miles of men!
A
mammoth stir,
A
sudden dash,
Swift
whip and spur
Together
clash,
And wheels on wheels that totter crash!
They’re
off! They’re off!
Away,
away,
In
mad array!
No
stop nor stay!
The hurried charge they ride to-day
Would
shame and scoff
The Tartar, Turk and Romanoff!
The
race is on;
The
host is gone;
The thronging legions madly ride
O’er
hill and dale,
With hurried pace unsatisfied.
In
fierce assail
Where
none may fail;
And only phantoms dimly blent
Tell where the mounted armies went,
Like shifting shadows, faint and dim,
Or ghostly spectors, gaunt and grim,
Beyond the far horizon’s rim!
Behold! Adown the valleys bright,
The last, lone straggler fades from sight,
And only hasty hoof-beats say
What thousands rode the race to-day;
What hosts, with hearts that build and
bless,
Found homes amid the wilderness!
AT PERRY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1893.
Crowds! Crowds! Crowds!
Suddenly here as if come from
the clouds
That faded away as they came;
Mad acres of people aflame
With thirst for a morsel of land;
Wild hunters of fortune, whose
game
Is ever escaping the hand;
Vast, countless, uncountable
throngs
With restless, unrestable feet,
That hurry the ways, full
of agonized wrongs,
For the conquest of happiness sweet;
Wild seas of ambition whose
waves of desire
On their obstacles mighty continually
beat,
Where neither the shore nor
the ocean is fixed;
Like thunderous songs of a
choir,
Whose murmurs in music repeat;
And confusion and chaos are
terribly mingled and mixed.
Dust! Dust! Dust!
Borne in the arms of the gathering
gust,
And whirled on the wings of
the wind,
The eyes feel the blight of
the blind,
And horror comes into the heart;
For nature is far more unkind
Than the thousands that struggle apart.
Dark, wild, inescapable dust,
In fiercest, untamable clouds,
That men into misery helplessly
thrust,
And bury in agony-shrouds;
A simoom of sorrow whose pestilent
breath
To the strong and the weak, to the young
and the old,
Brings despair that is reckless
of possible gain,
And the awfullest anguish of death;
Till the soul in its rage
uncontrolled,
Droops low in the horrible sickness and
sorrow of pain.