Classic Poem

A lowering night, with muggy sultry air;
A thirsting, restless, sullen, bawling herd;
Low distant rumbling peals of thunder there;
A sky with vivid lightning-flashes blurred.
The flickering campfire's dull and feeble glow;
The ribald songs the grim night-herders sing;
The murmur of the river, faint and low;
The night-bird over head, on tireless wing.

From rugged buttes, in snarling monotone,
The muttering thunder speaks a warning grim;
The breeze which o'er the rolling height is blown,
Sighs fitfully across the mesa's brim.
Now vagrant rain-drops kiss the dusty ground,
As louder growls the thunder-notes on high;
The cattle low in terror at the sound,
While anxious riders watch the threatening sky.

And now the storm bursts forth in fury wild,
As jagged lightning-flashes leap and flare
Across the heavens, where inky clouds are piled,
While crash on crash re-echoes through the air!
In mad affright the herd is under way!
No hand their headlong rushes can restrain!
And blinding, glaring shafts of light display
A sea of clashing horns across the plain!

Into the pitchy darkness of the night,
With spur and quirt and shout and wild hello,
Lithe figures speed to check their frenzied flight,
As on the panic-stricken thousands go!


And now the Storm God's wrath is spent and gone;
Hushed is his voice upon the mesa's crest;
The stars peep forth through scudding clouds, and dawn
Finds wearied riders safe, the herd at rest.