130 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



mocking-bird in his prime, lord of Love and 

 Life, challenging, as it were, the Immutable, 

 the Eternal, which answer not. His voice 

 breaks, droops among the summer trees, dies 

 away in a long, questioning murmur. The 

 swift cool breeze tosses the leaves of the 

 cottonwood in the round moon's face, and 

 swings away across the desert to where the 

 untrodden spires of the mountains cleave the 

 translucent sky, themselves as remote, as 

 indifferent. 



' What have we to do with thee, O man, and thy day of 

 small things !' 



The moments pass solemnly, the hours. 

 The bird lifts his wild voice no more. The 

 winds pause in their flight ; the darkest hour 

 before the dawn is at hand. 



' The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own repose, 

 And the weary winds are silent, and the moon is in 



the deep ; 



Some respite from its restlessness unresting ocean knows, 

 Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its ap- 

 pointed sleep. 

 Thou in the grave shalt rest. . . .' 



