THE HUNTER’S LAMENT

MY boy is dead, my pet, my own.
The crescent moon, with silver light,
Gleams on his lowly grave. To-night,
I take the trail of life alone.

Four years ago, I fondly said,
Lo, unto me a son is born.
And when the west wind waked the morn
The mother of my boy was dead.

I have no joy in heaven’s light,
I can not weep and will not pray.
I wear the dreary night to day,
I tire the weary day to night.

With dark surplice and oily voice
Comes one who speaks to me of peace.
“The boy has gone where sorrows cease,
’Twere meet the father should rejoice.”

My soul in fierceness makes reply:
My beautiful, my dark-eyed boy,
Whose very being was a joy,
What had he done that he should die!

Over the somber hill of pines
The night-wind sweeps with chastened wail,
Shaking against the moonbeams pale
The tangled hair of untrained vines.

The fox barks sharply from the hill
As fades the light adown the west.
Soothing his mate upon her nest,
Plaintively mourns the whip-poor-will.

Out from the shadows weird and grim
Where fitful gleams of moonlight fall,
I hear the owlet’s hollow call
Ring through the forest arches dim.

The dun deer feed at early morn
Where lilies nod by purling brooks:
Still hangs the rifle on its hooks,
Still am I restless and forlorn.

My rifle rusts against the wall,
My hound tugs idly at his chain,
I care not for the summer rain,
Or if the golden apples fall.

I know ’tis weakness thus to moan—
That men should suffer and be strong;
But oh, the journey seems so long!
And ’tis so sad to be alone!

Why should I o’er the mountain toil?
Where is the pleasure, what the need
To draw with skill the deadly bead
When none are left to share the spoil?

My home is desolate. Nor wife,
Nor joyous child will greet me more.
What wonder that I ponder o’er
My grief, or weary of my life?