Now long the long oars idle lay.
The cabin's smoke came forth and curl'd
Right lazily from river brake,
And Time went by the other way.
And who was she, the strong man's pride,
This one fair woman of his world?
A captive? Bride, or not a bride?
Her eyes, men say, grew sad and dim
With watching from the river's rim,
As waiting for some face denied.

Yea, who was she? none ever knew.
The great, strong river swept around
The cabin nestled in its bend,
But kept its secrets. Wild birds flew
In bevies by. The black men found
Diversion in the chase; and wide
Old Morgan ranged the wood, nor friend
Nor foeman ever sought his side,
Or shared his forests deep and dim,
Or cross'd his path or question'd him.

He stood as one who found and named
The middle world. What visions flamed
Athwart the west! What prophecies
Were his, the gray old man, that day
Who stood alone and look'd away, —
Awest from out the waving trees,
Against the utter sundown seas.

Alone ofttime beside the stream
He stood and gazed as in a dream, —
As if he knew a life unknown
To those who knew him thus alone.
His eyes were gray and overborne
By shaggy brows, his strength was shorn,
Yet still he ever gazed awest,
As one that would not, could not rest.

And had he fled with bloody hand?
Or had he loved some Helen fair,
And battling lost both land and town?
Say, did he see his walls go down,
Then choose from all his treasures there
This one, and seek some other land?

The squirrels chatter'd in the leaves,
The turkeys call'd from pawpaw wood,
The deer with lifted nostrils stood,
'Mid climbing blossoms sweet with bee,
'Neath snow-white rose of Cherokee.

Then frosts hung ices on the eaves,
Then cushion snows possess'd the ground,
And so the seasons kept their round;
Yet still old Morgan went and came
From cabin door through forest dim,
Through wold of snows, through wood of flame,
Through golden Indian-summer days,
Hung red with soft September haze,
And no man cross'd or questioned him.

Nay, there was that in his stern air
That held e'en these rude men aloof;
None came to share the broad-built roof
That rose so fortress-like beside
The angry, rushing, sullen tide,
And only black men gather'd there,
The old man's slaves in dull content,
Black, silent, and obedient.

Then men push'd westward through his wood,
His wild beasts fled, and now he stood
Confronting men. He had endear'd
No man, but still he went and came
Apart, and shook his beard and strode
His ways alone, and bore his load,
If load it were, apart, alone.
Then men grew busy with a name
That no man loved, that many fear'd,
And rude men stoop'd, and cast a stone,
As at some statue overthrown.

Some said, a stolen bride was she,
And that her lover from the sea
Lay waiting for his chosen wife,
And that a day of reckoning
Lay waiting for this grizzled king.

Some said that looking from her place
A love would sometimes light her face,
As if sweet recollections stirr'd
Like far, sweet songs that come to us,
So soft, so sweet, they are not heard,
So far, so faint, they fill the air,
A fragrance falling anywhere.

So, wasting all her summer years
That utter'd only through her tears,
The seasons went, and still she stood
Forever watching down the wood.

Yet in her heart there held a strife
With all this wasting of sweet life,
That none who have not lived — and died —
Held up the two hands crucified
Between two ways — can understand.

Men went and came, and still she stood
In silence watching down the wood —
Adown the wood beyond the land,
Her hollow face upon her hand,
Her black, abundant hair all down
About her loose, ungather'd gown.

And what her thought? her life unsaid?
Was it of love? of hate? of him,
The tall, dark Southerner? Her head
Bow'd down. The day fell dim
Upon her eyes. She bowed, she slept.
She waken'd then, and waking wept.