The Black Swans 



For they failed not in their daring 

 Till beyond the burning desert 

 Far beyond the jagged sky-line 

 In a flowery land and fruitful 

 Billows beating on the sand-dunes, 

 Thundering on the rocky headlands, 

 Marked the ending of the grazing. 



From their ancient haunts the hunted 

 Creatures that the wild had nurtured, 

 Driven from their lands and waters, 

 Now in sullen stealth retreated 

 To their secret rocks of refuge, 

 Calling on their sleeping war-gods : 

 Prayed that elemental furies 

 Might be loosed upon the ranges. 



And the strangers all unconscious 

 That the earth would soon be shaking 

 With the anger of the heavens 

 Went their way in peace and feared not. 



As the eagle from his eyrie 

 Hurls himself upon his quarry, 

 As the arrow from the cord flies, 

 As the lion on his prey springs, 

 As a wounded herd bull charging, 

 So the wilderness revolted; 

 So did Manitou awaken, 

 Swift to punish and to chasten. 



[98] 



