Again they move, but where or how
It recks them little, nothing now.
Yet Morgan leads them as before,
But totters now; he bends, and he
Is like a broken ship a-sea,—
A ship that knows not any shore,
And knows it shall not anchor more.
Some leaning shadows crooning crept
Through desolation, crown'd in dust.
And had the mad pursuer kept
His path, and cherished his pursuit?
There lay no choice. Advance he must:
Advance, and eat his ashen fruit.
Yet on and on old Morgan led.
His black men totter'd to and fro,
A leaning, huddled heap of woe;
Then one fell down, then two fell dead;
Yet not one moaning word was said.
They made no sign, they said no word,
Nor lifted once black, helpless hands;
And all the time no sound was heard
Save but the dull, dead, muffled tread
Of shuffled feet in shining sands.
Again the still moon rose and stood
Above the dim, dark belt of wood,
Above the buttes, above the snow,
And bent a sad, sweet face below.
She reach'd along the level plain
Her long, white fingers. Then again
She reach'd, she touch'd the snowy sands,
Then reach'd far out until she touch'd
A heap that lay with doubled hands,
Reach'd from its sable self, and clutch'd
With death.
O tenderly
That black, that dead and hollow face
Was kiss'd at midnight....
What if I say
The long, white moonbeams reaching there,
Caressing idle hands of clay,
And resting on the wrinkled hair
And great lips push'd in sullen pout,
Were God's own fingers reaching out
From heaven to that lonesome place?