This—with the sigh of the dark sad trees that stand
Aloft on yon battlement, looking across the land,
Rooted age-deep in the crumbling canyon rock,
Suffering, fog-wreathed, the sea-driven tempest's shock.
This—where the gloomy walls of the river's bed
Climb toward the forest murmuring overhead,
Learning the song on the soft Chinook that bears
Smiles for the fruitful land, for the arid, tears;
With the luminous moon so soft behind the mist
And a thin sweet star that a spruce's tuft has kissed.

I seem the first to have seen this, I the last
I the only one, yet in ages past
Who knows but some Indian, treading at dusk the wood
Paused on the edge of the bluff, and listening, stood
Then just as I, with a shower of crumbling clay,
Half climbed, half slipped to the bottom where twilight grey
Already was veiling the wondrous face of Day.
Long time he stood, and the roar of the upper fall
Beat in his ears. From the top of the canyon wall
A black hawk lifted and sailing across the sky
Portended evil, harshly sounding his cry.

Then gazing about him, waded the icy stream
Where the dim cliffs like misty phantoms seem
Ghosts from the realm of some forgotten dream.
And, as the demon darkness swallowed the light
Donning his starry armor diamond-bright.
The firelight touched the Indian's swarthy face
As he crooned some song of his mystic savage race.
And the moon peeped down from the feathered cloud she rode
Where a silver stream through a silver canyon flowed.

Then Dawn was born, and with the coming light
The Eagle Sun soared from the realm of night.
Then roused himself the Indian, sprang far out
Into a shadowed pool and threshed about
With tawny limbs. Emerged with body bare
And shook the water from his shining hair.
Then, dripping crystal drops, he climbed the wall
And, standing like a gleaming statue tall
Against the forest green he gazed once more
Down where the living water chafed its shore
The silver trout that leaped from out the stream
And the murmur like the whisper of a dream
Long-past and half-forgotten, soft and sweet
The patter of innumerable feet
Adorn the twilight of Eternity.
He turned, and soundless, vanished.