THE moon, on plain and bluff and stream,

Casts but a faint and fitful gleam,

For, striving in a ghostly race,

The clouds that rack across her face

Now leave her drifting, white and high,

In some clear lake of purple sky

And then, like waves with crests upcurled,

Obscure her radiance from the world.

Across the wild Missouri's breast

Which lies in icy armor dressed,

The north wind howls and moans.

Wrenching the naked trees that stand

Like skeletons along the strand,

To shrill and creaking groans.

On distant butte and wide coteau

Is snow and never-ending snow:

Whirling aloft in spiral clouds,

Weaving in misty, crystal shrouds,

Then floating back to earth again

To drift across the frozen plain

In strangely sculptured trough and crest,

Like some slow ocean's heaving breast.

Such night is not for mortal kind

To fare abroad; the bitter wind,

The restless snows, the frost-locked mold

Bid living creatures seek their hold

And leave to Winter's monarch will

The solitudes of vale and hill.

The buffalo, whose legions vast

A few short moons ago have passed

Adown these bleak hillsides,

Now graze full many a league away

Where, through the genial southern day

The winds of Matagorda Bay

Caress their shaggy hides.

The wolves have sought their coverts deep

In dark ravine and coulÉe steep,

Where cedar thickets, dense and warm,

Afford protection from the storm,

And every creature of the plains

Has left his well-beloved domains

To seek, or near or far,

A haven where warm-blooded life

May cower from the dreadful strife

Of hyperborean war.

But see, across yon barren swell

Where wind and snow-rime weave a spell

Of phantoms o'er the hill,

What awkward creatures of the night

Come creeping, snail-like, on the sight,

Halting and slow, in weary plight

But ever onward still?

Their limbs are long and lank and thin,

Their forms are swathed from foot to chin

In garments rude of bison skin.

Upon each broad and stalwart back

Is strapped a huge and weighty pack,

Their coarse and ragged hair

Streams back from brows whose dusky stain

Is dyed by blizzard, wind, and rain,

They are a fearsome pair;

Lone pilgrims of the coteau vast.

They seem like cursed souls, outcast

To roam forever there.

Yet hark! Adown the cold wind flung,

What voice of merriment gives tongue?

'Tis human laughter, deep and strong,

And now, all suddenly, a song

Rings o'er the prairie lone!

A chanson old, whose rhythm oft

Has lingered on the breezes soft

That kiss the storied Rhone,

Or floated up from lips of love

To some dark casement, high above

The streets of Avignon,

Where lovely eyes, all maidenly,

Glance shyly forth, that they may see

What lover comes to serenade

Ere drawing back the latticed shade

To toss a red rose down.

What fickle fate, what strange mischance

Has brought this song of sunny France

To ride upon the blizzard crest

That mantles o'er the wild Northwest?

To find its echoes sweet

In barren butte and stark cliff-side,

Whose beetling summits override

The fierce Missouri's murky tide;

To rouse the scurrying feet

Of antelope and lean coyote;

To hear its last, long, witching note,

Caught in the hoot-owl's dismal throat,

Sweep by on pinions fleet.

Full far these errant sons of Gaul

Have journeyed from the gray sea-wall

That fronts on fair Marseilles,

But still the spirit of their race

Bids them to turn a dauntless face

On whate'er Fates prevail.

The storm may drive to bush and den

The creatures of the field and fen,

But neither storm nor darksome night

Nor ice-bound stream nor frowning height

Can check or turn or put to flight

These iron-hearted men.

Across the flats of stinging sands,

Through thickets, woods, and sere uplands,

Their weary pathway shows;

Toward some far fort of logs and stakes

Deep hidden in the willow brakes,

Right onward still it goes

Persistently, an unblazed track,

Bent from the cheerless bivouac

Of some poor, prairie Indian band

Whose chill and flimsy tepees stand

Half buried in the snows.

Yet what of costly merchandise

That wealth may covet, commerce prize,

Can these adventurers wring

From that ill-fed, barbarian horde

As seems to them a meet reward

For all the risk and toil and pain

They've suffered on the winter plain

Amid their journeying?

Ah, wealth enough is garnered there,

Though not of gold or jewels rare,

To rouse the white man's longing greed

And send his servants forth with speed

To lay the treasure bare.

The trinkets cheap these traders brought

The savages have dearly bought,

Persuaded guilelessly to pay

A ten times doubled usury

In furs of beavers and of minks,

Of silver fox and spotted lynx.

For all their rich and varied store

Of peltries, gathered from the shore,

The wood, the prairie, and the hill

By trapper's art and hunter's skill,

The traders' heavy packs now fill.

A journey far those furs must go

From these wild fastnesses of snow,

By travois, pack, and deep bateau;

By keel-boat, sloop, and merchantman

Till half a hemisphere they span,

Ere they will lie, at last, displayed

By boulevard and esplanade

In Europe's buzzing marts of trade.

These marten skins, so soft and warm,

May wrap some Russian princess' form

And shield her from the Arctic storm

That howls o'er Kroonstadt's bay;

That robe, a huge black bear which, dressed,

May cloak some warrior monarch's breast

As, gazing o'er the battle crest,

He sees the foemen's legions pressed

In panic, from the fray.

But it is not the destinies

Which may, perchance, beyond the seas,

Await these rare commodities,

That chiefly signify,

Though king and knight and princess fair

Should leave the coteaus stripped and bare

Their pride to gratify.

But this; that in the storm to-night.

Through cloudy gloom, through pale moonlight,

Two men still press along.

Not hiding, as the wolf and hind,

From blinding snow and bitter wind

Nor, like the Indian, crouching low

Above a brush-fire's feeble glow

But, vigorous and strong,

Hasting their bidden task to close

Whate'er obstructions interpose

And parrying Fortune's adverse blows

Right gaily, with a song.

Plains of the mighty, virgin West,

Plains in cold, sterile beauty dressed,

Your time of fruit draws near!

Creatures of thicket, vale and shore,

Tribes of the hills, your reign is o'er,

The conquerer is here!

His footprints mark your secret grounds,

His voice upon your air resounds,

His name, unto your utmost bounds,

Is one of strength and fear.

The magic of his virile powers

Shall change your desert wastes to bowers,

Your nakedness to shade;

Shall stretch broad, rustling ranks of corn

Along your stony crests forlorn

And wheat-fields, dappling in the sun,

Where your mad autumn fires have run.

The trails your bison made

Shall grow beneath his hurrying feet

To highway broad and village street,

Along whose grassy sides shall sleep

Meadows and orchards, fruited deep;

Homesteads and schools and holy fanes

To prove that all these fertile plains

Are turned by God's eternal plan

To serve the onward march of man,

Which sweeping down the vale of time

With gathering strength and hope sublime

Is never checked nor stayed.