Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/705

 gon. He is the author of Song of the Oregon Pine and Other Poems, published by the press of the Pendleton East Oregonian in 1907, a book that is now very rare and that contains several poems of high merit. When Joaquin Miller was asked to write a poem for the dedication of the Sacajawea statue at the time of the Lewis and Clark Exposition, he told the committee that he could not do so well as Bert Huffman's poem on the subject. “The Lament of the Umatilla” first appeared in the Oregonian, and N. J. Levinson, Sunday editor, said that though the paper had been printing poems for 50 years this was the first original one that had been paid for. He was born in Summerville, Union County, in 1870, and began writing verse for the Union County papers at the age of 15. At 20 he married Ella Green, who was 16. For years there had been a bitter feud between their fathers, two stockmen of Eastern Oregon. The variety of his occupations in addition to poetry has been enumerated by Lula R. Lorenz in an article about him: “He is an editorial writer of recognized force and virility, is a locomotive engineer, has ridden the ranges of the west, has farmed, raised stock, operated sawmills, trailed horses across the plains, mountaineered and roughed it in every phase of western life. ” He was managing editor of the East Oregonian in Pendleton at the time his book was published, but in recent years has made his home in Alberta, Canada.

LAMENT of THE UMATILLA

From Song of the Oregon Pine and Other Poems, 1907

Spirit of the yesterday hovers near and croons— Brings my heart the hunting grounds of the long-lost Junes! Sings of years forgotten, chants of races dead— Weep, my wondering baby, for the Good Moons fled!

By the silvery river all your race has died— Sleep and dream, my baby, by its lisping tide! Comes no more the huntsman from the glorious chase— O'er yon templed mountains swarms the paler face!

Hark! I hear a whisper calling from the past— Hear the warrior's frenzied cry o n the tempest cast! Hush, my heart, and listen! Calling, calling still! Ah, 'tis but the moaning wind o'er the silent hill! Hark! The hurried hoofbeats o f the warrior band! Ah, my heart betrays me i n this empty land!