Where Rolls the Oregon
by Joaquin Miller
ee once these stately scenes, then roam no more;- No more remains on earth to cultured eyes;
- The cataract comes down, a broken roar,
- The palisades defy approach, and rise
- Green moss'd and dripping to the clouded skies.
- The canyon thunders with its full of foam,
- And calls loud-mouth'd, and all the land defies;
- The mounts make fellowship and dwell at home
- In snowy brotherhood beneath their purpled dome.
- The rainbows swim in circles round, and rise
- Against the hanging granite walls till lost
- In drifting dreamy clouds and dappled skies,
- A grand mosaic intertwined and toss'd
- Along the mighty canyon, bound and cross'd
- By storms of screaming birds of sea and land;
- The salmon rush below, bright red and boss'd
- In silver. Tawny, tall, on either hand
- You see the savage spearman nude and silent stand.
- Here sweep the wide wild waters cold and white
- And blue in their far depths; divided now
- By sudden swift canoe as still and light
- As feathers nodding from the painted brow
- That lifts and looks from out the imaged prow.
- Ashore you hear the papoose shout at play;
- The curl'd smoke comes from underneath the bough
- Of leaning fir: the wife looks far away
- And sees a swift slim bark divide the dashing spray.
- Slow drift adown the river's level'd deep,
- And look above; lo, columns! woods! the snow!
- The rivers rush upon the brink and leap
- From out the clouds three thousand feet below,
- And land afoam in tops of firs that grow
- Against your river's rim: they plash, they play
- In clouds, now loud and now subdued and slow,
- A thousand thunder tones; they swing and sway
- In idle winds, long leaning shafts of shining spray.
- An Indian summer-time it was, long past,
- We lay on this Columbia, far below
- The stormy water falls, and God had cast
- Us heaven's stillness. Dreamily and slow
- We drifted as the light bark chose to go.
- An Indian girl with ornaments of shell
- Began to sing.... The stars may hold such flow
- Of hair, such eyes, but rarely earth. There fell
- A sweet enchantment that possess'd me as a spell.
- We saw the elk forsake the sable wood,
- Step quick across the rim of shining sand,
- Breast out unscared against the flashing flood,
- Then brisket deep with lifted antlers stand,
- And ears alert, look sharp on either hand,
- Then whistle shrill to dam and doubting fawn
- To cross, then lead with black nose to the land.
- They cross'd, they climb'd the heaving hills, were gone,
- A sturdy charging line with crooked sabers drawn.
- Then black swans cross'd us slowly low and still;
- Then other swans, wide-wing'd and white as snow,
- Flew overhead and topp'd the timber'd hill,
- And call'd and sang afar, coarse-voiced and slow,
- Till sounds roam'd lost in somber firs below....
- Then clouds blew in, and all the sky was cast
- With tumbled and tumultuous clouds that grow
- Red thunderbolts....A flash! A thunder blast!
- The clouds were rent, and lo! Mount Hood hung white and vast.