Page:Poems by Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/89

 Nevada, desert, waste,

Mighty, and inhospitable, and stern;

Hiding a meaning over which we yearn

In eager, panting haste,

Grasping and losing,

Still being deluded ever by our choosing,

Answer us Sphinx: What is thy meaning double

But endless toil and trouble?

Inscrutable, men strive

To rend thy secret from thy rocky breast;

Breaking their hearts, and periling heaven's rest

For hopes that cannot thrive;

Whilst unrelenting,

From thy unlovely throne, and unrepenting,

Thou sittest, basking in a fervid sun,

Seeing or hearing none.

I sit beneath thy stars,

The shallop moon beached on a bank of clouds,

And see thy mountains wrapped in shadowy shrouds,

Glad that the darkness bars

The day's suggestion—

The endless repetition of one question;

Glad that thy stony face I cannot see,

Nevada—Mystery!

Shermantown, Nev., 1869. 81