The Black Swans 



From the grassy realms of Texas, 

 Day by day in countless numbers 

 Pressed the cattle to the conquest. 

 Northward, westward, ever northward, 

 Toward the sunny plains of Kansas, 

 Toward the walls of Colorado. 



Night by night their bed-grounds found them 

 Nearer still and always nearer 

 To the nameless unknown perils 

 Of the Northland they had entered 

 On the trails that led not backward. 



Not the pangs of thirst nor hunger, 

 Not the northern storm-cloud's warning, 

 Not the stampede in the darkness, 

 Not the seas of fire that threatened 

 On the wind-swept blazing prairies 

 Stayed them in their great migration 

 As they journeyed ever onward 

 Toward the sand hills of Nebraska, 

 Toward the Bad Lands of Dakota, 

 Northward, westward, ever northward. 



And the Chinook came to cheer them. 

 Higher still and ever higher 

 Newer pastures bloomed and beckoned. 

 Where the Yellowstone was flowing, 

 Where the wide Missouri wandered, 

 Where Montana's peaks were gleaming, 



[96] 



