Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/109



TRUTH: The crown of Death is majesty ; Forgetfulness his tender benediction.

POET: I was a soldier and have gone out to kill and be killed.

TRUTH: This was not majestic.

POET: The command of the State.

TRUTH: Politicians in power.

POET: Just over there where yon purple peak, Like a great amethyst, gems the brow of the Desert, I sprawled flat in the bunch-grass, a target For those Indians, betrayed by this thing we call the State.

TRUTH: Authority.

POET: Even the little gray gophers sat erect and laughed at me. In that silent hour before the dawn. When Nature drowses for a moment, We swept, like fire, over the smoke-browned tee-pees,

whose conical tops Peeped above the willows, which unconcerned, Whispered to the coquetting of the wind. We frightened the air with crackle of rifles, women's

shrieks, children's screams, shrill yells of savages. Hoarse curses of Christians. The rifles chuckled continually; A poor people, who asked nothing but freedom, butchered

in the dark.

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