270 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



that then, the supreme hour having come, 

 the Voice having authority spoke, and the 

 waters fled, ploughing in their course deep 

 furrows in the everlasting hills, and so sinking 

 into the earth, until in very truth there was 

 no more sea. 



No ruthless Apache or mild Pueblo crosses 

 now the still and solemn plain on which we 

 gaze. All is peace, while the sun declines to 

 his appointed place. There, where for un- 

 counted ages he has rested in his passing 

 there he leans now, marshalling to his own 

 the banners of his serried hosts, who the 

 long day through have followed him in light 

 array from the hither brim to the further of 

 the earth's wide cup. 



Twilight blurs the remote radiance of 

 heaven with a hurried trail of garments, 

 upon whose hem Night has already laid a 

 hand wrapped in a mantle of sable pierced 

 with the flash of stars. Back to the world 

 that is too much with us we creep from the 

 vast and solitary waste. Undisturbed by our 

 coming, indifferent to our going, Sphinx-like 

 still she broods and watches from her 

 pyramids and towers. But her spirit, the 



