| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
Frontier Ballads
The savages have dearly bought, Persuaded guilelessly to pay A ten times doubled usury In furs of beavers and of minks, Of silver fox and spotted lynx. For all their rich and varied store Of peltries, gathered from the shore, The wood, the prairie, and the hill By trapper's art and hunter's skill, The traders' heavy packs now fill.
A journey far those furs must go
From these wild fastnesses of snow,
By travois, pack, and deep bateau;
By keel-boat, sloop, and merchantman
Till half a hemisphere they span,
Ere they will lie, at last, displayed
By boulevard and esplanade
In Europe's buzzing marts of trade.
These marten skins, so soft and warm,
May wrap some Russian princess' form
And shield her from the Arctic storm
That howls o'er Kroonstadt's bay;
That robe, a huge black bear which, dressed,
May cloak some warrior monarch's breast
As, gazing o'er the battle crest,
He sees the foemen's legions pressed
In panic, from the fray.
But it is not the destinies
Which may, perchance, beyond the seas,
Await these rare commodities,
That chiefly signify,
Though king and knight and princess fair
Should leave the coteaus stripped and bare
Their pride to gratify.
But this; that in the storm to-night,
Through cloudy gloom, through pale moonlight,
Two men still press along,
Not hiding, as the wolf and hind, |
||
|
|
||
|
50 |
||