University of Virginia Library

“Now mind, I tell you, I cried, ‘Come in!
Come into the house, come out from the hollow,
Come out of the storm, come up from the river!’
Aye, cried, and call'd in that desolate din,
Though I did not rush out, and in plain words give her
A wordy warning of the flood to follow,
Word by word, and letter by letter;
But she knew it as well as I, and better;
For once in the desert of New Mexico
When we two sought frantically far and wide
For the famous spot where Apaches shot
With bullets of gold their buffalo,
And she stood faithful to death at my side,
I threw me down in the hard hot sand
Utterly famish'd, and ready to die;
Then a speck arose in the red-hot sky—
A speck no larger than a lady's hand—
While she at my side bent tenderly over,
Shielding my face from the sun as a cover,
And wetting my face, as she watch'd by my side,
From a skin she had borne till the high noontide,
(I had emptied mine in the heat of the morning)
When the thunder mutter'd far over the plain
Like a monster bound or a beast in pain:
She sprang the instant, and gave the warning,
With her brown hand pointed to the burning skies,
For I was too weak unto death to rise.
But she knew the peril, and her iron will,
With a heart as true as the great North Star,
Did bear me up to the palm-tipp'd hill,
Where the fiercest beasts in a brotherhood,
Beasts that had fled from the plain and far,
In perfectest peace expectant stood,
With their heads held high, and their limbs a-quiver.
Then ere she barely had time to breathe
The boiling waters began to seethe
From hill to hill in a booming river,
Beating and breaking from hill to hill—
Even while yet the sun shot fire,
Without the shield of a cloud above—
Filling the cañon as you would fill
A wine-cup, drinking in swift desire,
With the brim new-kiss'd by the lips you love!