 | Joaquin Miller's Poems |  |
VII
Such tangle, jungle, who could stand?
Such jungle, tangle, who could see?
What need, indeed, to see when we
Fell instant fighting, hand to hand?
Long bamboo lances searched us out,
Short javelins, with points of glass,
Great arrowheads of gold, like hail!
Ah! it had been a sorry rout
Had each not held his narrow pass—
With not one left to tell the tale.
Such jungle, tangle, who could see?
What need, indeed, to see when we
Fell instant fighting, hand to hand?
Long bamboo lances searched us out,
Short javelins, with points of glass,
Great arrowheads of gold, like hail!
Ah! it had been a sorry rout
Had each not held his narrow pass—
With not one left to tell the tale.
21
They fought in herd, they fell in heap,
Rushed here, rushed there, like silly sheep,
And met behind each blazing tree
A double-barreled battery,
A dozen deadly, leaden shot,
Till suddenly the rush and din
Of arrow, spear, lance, javelin,
And all that frenzied host was not.
Rushed here, rushed there, like silly sheep,
And met behind each blazing tree
A double-barreled battery,
A dozen deadly, leaden shot,
Till suddenly the rush and din
Of arrow, spear, lance, javelin,
And all that frenzied host was not.
| Joaquin Miller's Poems | |