The poet, the fool and the faeries

There hangs the painting.—Will you sit
And hear me tell how it was born?—
Or, rather, why I value it?—
It may be that it helps my yarn:
Prompts memory: saves me, say, from scorn
Of unbelievers, such as you,
Who may not think my story true.

You like the picture, eh?—It's clear.—
My tale epitomized, you see.—
For me it has the thrill, the fear
Of that tense moment, suddenly
Which swept aside my poverty
And made me rich. ... Ai, ai!—Who knows
What just a heel-tap may disclose!

I who sit comfortable now
With friends beside the wine, cigars,
Was less than dirt beneath the plough
Of Fortune once.—Read here the scars
Of lost black battles and old wars
With Fate. ... But there's my tale to tell.—
I fear I never do it well.

In brief, then:—In a land of thieves
Was one—a thief and bushman; who,—

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Gray as gray winter when it grieves,
Housed me one night.—It seems he knew
Of treasure somewhere—had a clue,
And told me.—Well, as many had,
I thought him but a fool, or mad.

Until one day I found the place—
A bald hill rimmed with grizzly grass,
And seamed with wrinkles, like a face,
Down which two streams, like tears, did race
From one round pool, as still as glass,
A Cyclop's eye, browed thick with thorn,
That seemed to leer a look of scorn.

The sunset struck athwart the land
A glare of hate; an evil flame;
Fierce as a thought that lifts a hand
Of murder in an outlaw band,
Commanding to some deed of shame;
And like a signal overhead,
One cloud blew wild, a ragged red.

A cut-throat place for cut-throat deeds!
With death's-head looks all wrung and wryed.—
Was it a bloodstain in the weeds?
Or but some autumn plant whose seeds
Dropped scarlet on the gray hillside?—
It made me catch my breath a space,
Fearing to see a dead man's face.

I left my horse: and looked around
For that dwarfed pine, he said the waste

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Was marked with,—where the clue was found. ...
No tree was there—save on the ground
A rotted trunk with lichens laced;
So old it looked, it seemed to me
It had been dead a century.

A rock, he said, with arrows hewn
Lay at its root.—Well, there were rocks!
The place was pierced and piled and strewn
With thousands;—none that held a rune,
To point me to that buried box.—
As soon search out one bone of bones
On Doomsday as that stone of stones.

By then the sunset glare had died,
And darkness, with an haggard eye
Of moon, crept down the gaunt hillside.
I sat me on that tree and tried
To think the thing out. Did he lie?
That bearded beggar, old and gray,
That bushman I had found one day.

What right had one so foul and poor,
So helpless, say, in such a spot,
With so much wealth? Not even a door
To his vile hovel, where I bore
Him dying when I found him shot.—
What right had he, so poor and old,
To secrets, say, of buried gold?

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Then on my mind it flashed like rain:
The man was mad;—had lived alone
With dreams of riches,—it was plain,—
Till gold possessed him bone and brain.—
Just then my heel wrenched up a stone ...
And there! as plain as God's half moon
In heaven, an arrow point lay hewn.

“A madman?”—and I laughed awry.
“A fool might dig to prove his dream!”—
But if unproved, a fool were I
To come so near to pass it by,
For other fools, say, to redeem!
When, one could see,—you understand,—
The thing lay ready to my hand.

Well; what I found this frame declares—
This canvas—see?—A hill of rocks.—
The artist?—Why, a name that shares
Its fame with none.—The lean moon stares
Upon a grave; a bursten box;
A dead man by them, gray and old.—
I call my picture “Robber Gold.”

University of Virginia Library

ROBBER GOLD