Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/36



TRUTH: She seems blind, but her blindness is vision.

POET: She seems cruel, but her cruelty is mercy.

TRUTH: Who breaks her conditions is his own executioner.

POET: The merciful mother is merciful as a mother.

TRUTH: She keepeth the race.

III. POET:

Behold, the silver-kirtled Dawn,

The Life-renewer, sure Harvester of Gloom,

And Bright Bringer of good hope.

The skies are listening to Earth's silence

And the Comforter casts abroad her gossamer mantle.

The Desert sleeps, but her children, like fretful babies.

Stir upon her bosom.

TRUTH: The lean coyote, prowler of the night. Slips to his rocky fastnesses.

Jack-rabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush. And from the castellated cliffs

Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day. The wild horses troop back to their pastures.

POET: The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches. Orioles, whose nests sway in the cottonwood-trees by the

ditch-side, begin to twitter. All shy things, breathless, watch The thin, white skirts of Dawn,

30