Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/158
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And gleaming in a ring of waxen tapers;After the chant of death, the long black robes,Blown by the wind and winding over the hillsWith slow black songs to the marked-out-place-of-death;The solemn feet that moved along the roadBehind the wagon-with-windows, the wagon-of-death,With its jingling nickel harness, its dancing plumes.Oh, the shining splendor of that burial march,The round-eyed wonder of the village throng!And oh, the fierce-hot hunger, the burning envyThat seared your soul when you beheld your friendAchieve such high distinction from the black-robes!And later, when the cavalcade of priestsWound down from the fenced-in-ground, like a slow black wormCrawling upon the snow—don't you recall?—The meeting in the mission?—that night, your first,In the white man's lodge of holy-medicine?How clearly I can see your hesitant stepOn the threshhold of the church; within the doorYour gasp of quick surprise, your breathless mouth;Your eyes round-white before the glimmering taper,The golden-filigreed censer, the altar hungWith red rosettes and velvet soft as an otter'sPelt in the frost of autumn, with tinsel sparklingLike cold blue stars above the frozen snows.Oh, the blinding beauty of that House of God!—Even the glittering bar at Jock McKay's,Tinkling with goblets of fiery devil's-spit,With dazzling vials and many-looking mirrors,Seemed lead against the silver of the mission.
I hear again the chanting holy-men,The agents of the white man's Mighty SpiritMaking their talks with strong, smooth-moving tongues:
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