Classic Poem

All day through woodland stillnesses
Of weighted fir and spruce
We 've followed on our springing shoes
The blood-trail of the moose,
And now the moon swings clear, and black
The shadows fall across our track.

All day above the crunching snow
Pierre and Dick and I,
With lust of blood, have sped along
To see the great moose die.
And now the night has come, and dim
The spectral drifts wreathe after him.

We shot him at the cabin door;
The whisky-jacks cried shrill.
And when the smoke moved up I saw
The hemlocks waiting still—
The ancient spruces bending low
To his brave blood across the snow.

Yea, brave his blood as yours or mine
And fit for better skill.
The devil's luck, Pierre! I know
The sights were fixed to kill.
To-night a bull-moose, plunging, dies
Beneath the comfortless, wide skies.