It chanced one day that the paternal Grey Came to West Point that he himself might hail The future hero in some proper way Consistent with his lineage. With him came A judge, a poet, and a brave array Of aunts and uncles, bearing each a name, Eyeglass and respirator with the same.
XIX
"Observe!" quoth Grey the elder to his friends, "Not in these giddy youths at baseball playing You'll notice Winthrop Adams! Greater ends Than these absorb HIS leisure. No doubt straying With Caesar's Commentaries, he attends Some Roman council. Let us ask, however, Yon grimy urchin, who my soul offends By wheeling offal, if he will endeavor To find-- What! heaven! Winthrop! Oh! no! never!"
XX
Alas! too true! The last of all the Greys Was "doing police detail,"--it had come To this; in vain the rare historic bays That crowned the pictured Puritans at home!
And yet 'twas certain that in grosser ways Of health and physique he was quite improving.
Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise In other exercise, much more behooving A soldier's taste than merely dirt removing.
XXI
But to resume: we left the youthful pair, Some stanzas back, before a lady's bower;
'Tis to be hoped they were no longer there, For stars were pointing to the morning hour.
Their escapade discovered, ill 'twould fare With our two heroes, derelict of orders;
But, like the ghost, they "scent the morning air,"
And back again they steal across the borders, Unseen, unheeded, by their martial warders.
XXII
They got to bed with speed: young Grey to dream Of some vague future with a general's star, And Mistress Kitty basking in its gleam;
While Brown, content to worship her afar, Dreamed himself dying by some lonely stream, Having snatched Kitty from eighteen Nez Perces, Till a far bugle, with the morning beam, In his dull ear its fateful song rehearses, Which Winthrop Adams after put to verses.
XXIII
So passed three years of their novitiate, The first real boyhood Grey had ever known.
His youth ran clear,--not choked like his Cochituate, In civic pipes, but free and pure alone;
Yet knew repression, could himself habituate To having mind and body well rubbed down, Could read himself in others, and could situate Themselves in him,--except, I grieve to own, He couldn't see what Kitty saw in Brown!
XXIV
At last came graduation; Brown received In the One Hundredth Cavalry commission;
Then frolic, flirting, parting,--when none grieved Save Brown, who loved our young Academician.
And Grey, who felt his friend was still deceived By Mistress Kitty, who with other beauties Graced the occasion, and it was believed Had promised Brown that when he could recruit his Promised command, she'd share with him those duties.
XXV
Howe'er this was I know not; all I know, The night was June's, the moon rode high and clear;
"'Twas such a night as this," three years ago, Miss Kitty sang the song that two might hear.
There is a walk where trees o'erarching grow, Too wide for one, not wide enough for three (A fact precluding any plural beau), Which quite explained Miss Kitty's company, But not why Grey that favored one should be.
XXVI
There is a spring, whose limpid waters hide Somewhere within the shadows of that path Called Kosciusko's. There two figures bide,--Grey and Miss Kitty. Surely Nature hath No fairer mirror for a might-be bride Than this same pool that caught our gentle belle To its dark heart one moment. At her side Grey bent. A something trembled o'er the well, Bright, spherical--a tear? Ah no! a button fell!
XXVII
"Material minds might think that gravitation,"
Quoth Grey, "drew yon metallic spheroid down.
The soul poetic views the situation Fraught with more meaning. When thy girlish crown Was mirrored there, there was disintegration Of me, and all my spirit moved to you, Taking the form of slow precipitation!"
But here came "Taps," a start, a smile, adieu!
A blush, a sigh, and end of Canto II.
BUGLE SONG
Fades the light, And afar Goeth day, cometh night;
And a star Leadeth all, Speedeth all To their rest!
Love, good-night!
Must thou go When the day And the light Need thee so,--Needeth all, Heedeth all, That is best?
CANTO III
I
Where the sun sinks through leagues of arid sky, Where the sun dies o'er leagues of arid plain, Where the dead bones of wasted rivers lie, Trailed from their channels in yon mountain chain;
Where day by day naught takes the wearied eye But the low-rimming mountains, sharply based On the dead levels, moving far or nigh, As the sick vision wanders o'er the waste, But ever day by day against the sunset traced:
II
There moving through a poisonous cloud that stings With dust of alkali the trampling band Of Indian ponies, ride on dusky wings The red marauders of the Western land;
