WESTERN STATES. NIGHT Arkansas, the River. NIGHT ON THE ARKANSAS. [IGHT comes upon the Arkansas, with long stride. Its dark and turbid waters roll along, Bearing wrecked trees and drift, deep, red, and wide; The heavy forest sleeps on either side, To the water's edge low-stooping; and among No blue waves dance the stream's dark mass upon, Albert Pike. A PICTURE. NATURDAY night: the sun is going down; The purple light glows on the river's breast, Far in the east the dull clouds watch and frown, Jealous of all the glory in the west; The listless trees lean out along the shore To watch their shadows lengthen down the tide; And, far above us, slowly floating o'er, The weary birds on homeward pinions glide. The steamer, on the sand-bar fast asleep, Tired with the week's long labor, heavily lies; Longer and longer still the shadows creep, And evening mists from out the distance rise. All things in peace and patience seem to wait, THE RIVER'S LESSON. [NDER the canopied bank we lie, UNDER And the muddy river is rushing by, Yellow and foul from its eddying stray Through a thousand miles of wandering way, Gross and turbid; - and yet, I know That this same troubled and mingled flow I have watched it long, with an aching brow, If the river, so full of grime and strife, And if many a soul that has wandered and toiled, At the end may not calmly glide William Osborn Stoddard. Big Horn, the River, Montana Ter. THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE. N that desolate land and lone IN Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone Roar down their mountain path, By their fires the Sioux chiefs Muttered their woes and griefs, And the menace of their wrath. Revenge! " cried Rain-in-the-Face; "Revenge upon all the race. Of the White Chief with yellow hair!" And the mountains dark and high From their crags re-echoed the cry Of his anger and despair. In the meadow, spreading wide In his war-paint and his beads, Into the fatal snare The White Chief with yellow hair, And his three hundred men, Dashed headlong, sword in hand; But of that gallant band Not one returned again. The sudden darkness of death Overwhelmed them, like the breath And smoke of a furnace of fire; By the river's bank, and between The rocks of the ravine, They lay in their bloody attire. |