Part 7

Instead, I look out. And out to the dim of the desert, like a dream, never real; To the snow of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the ice of the mountains of Picoris, And near across at the opposite steep of snow, green trees motionless standing in snow, like a Christmas toy.

And I think in this empty world there was room for me and a mountain lion And I think in the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two of humans And never miss them. Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white frost face of that slim yellow mountain lion! _Lobo._

THE RED WOLF

Over the heart of the west, the Taos desert Circles an eagle, And it’s dark between me and him.

The sun, as he waits a moment, huge and liquid Standing without feet on the rim of the far-off mesa Says: _Look for a last long time then! Look! Look well! I am going._ So he pauses and is beholden, and straightway is gone.

And the Indian, in a white sheet Wrapped to the eyes, the sheet bound close on his brows, Stands saying: _See, I’m invisible!_ _Behold how you can’t behold me!_ _The invisible in its shroud!_

Now that the sun has gone, and the aspen leaves And the cotton-wood leaves are fallen, as good as fallen, And the ponies are in corral, And it’s night.

Why, more has gone than all these; And something has come. A red wolf stands on the shadow’s dark red rim.

Day has gone to dust on the sage-grey desert Like a white Christus fallen to dust from a cross; To dust, to ash, on the twilit floor of the desert.

And a black crucifix like a dead tree spreading wings; Maybe a black eagle with its wings out Left lonely in the night In a sort of worship.

And coming down upon us, out of the dark concave Of the eagle’s wings, And the coffin-like slit where the Indians’ eyes are, And the absence of cotton-wood leaves, or of aspen, Even the absence of dark-crossed donkeys: Come tall old demons, smiling The Indian smile, Saying: _How do you do, you pale-face?_

I am very well, old demon. How are you?

_Call me Harry if you will,_ _Call me Old Harry says he._ _Or the abbreviation of Nicolas,_ _Nick. Old Nick, maybe._

Well, you’re a dark old demon, And I’m a pale-face like a homeless dog That has followed the sun from the dawn through the east Trotting east and east and east till the sun himself went home, And left me homeless here in the dark at your door. How do you think we’ll get on, Old demon, you and I?

_You and I, you pale-face,_ _Pale-face you and I_ _Don’t get on._

Mightn’t we try?

_Where’s your God, you white one?_ _Where’s your white God?_

He fell to dust as the twilight fell, Was fume as I trod The last step out of the east.

_Then you’re a lost white dog of a pale-face,_ _And the days now dead...._

Touch me carefully, old father, My beard is red.

_Thin red wolf of a pale-face,_ _Thin red wolf, go home._

I have no home, old father, That’s why I come.

_We take no hungry stray from the pale-face ..._

Father, you are not asked. I am come. I am here. The red-dawn-wolf Sniffs round your place. Lifts up his voice and howls to the walls of the pueblo, Announcing he’s here.

_The dogs of the dark pueblo_ _Have long fangs ..._

Has the red wolf trotted east and east and east From the far, far other end of the day To fear a few fangs?

Across the pueblo river That dark old demon and I Thus say a few words to each other

And wolf, he calls me, and red. I call him no names. He says, however, he is Star-Road. I say, he can go back the same gait.

As for me ... Since I trotted at the tail of the sun as far as ever the creature went west, And lost him here, I’m going to sit down on my tail right here And wait for him to come back with a new story. I’m the red wolf, says the dark old father. All right, the red dawn wolf I am. _Taos._

GHOSTS

MEN IN NEW MEXICO

Mountains blanket-wrapped Round a white hearth of desert--

While the sun goes round And round and round the desert, The mountains never get up and walk about. They can’t, they can’t wake.

They camped and went to sleep In the last twilight Of Indian gods; And they can’t wake.

Indians dance and run and stamp-- No good. White men make gold-mines and the mountains unmake them In their sleep.

The Indians laugh in their sleep From fear, Like a man when he sleeps and his sleep is over, and he can’t wake up, And he lies like a log and screams and his scream is silent Because his body can’t wake up; So he laughs from fear, pure fear, in the grip of the sleep.

A dark membrane over the will, holding a man down Even when the mind has flickered awake; A membrane of sleep, like a black blanket.

We walk in our sleep, in this land, Somnambulist wide-eyed afraid.

We scream for someone to wake us And our scream is soundless in the paralysis of sleep, And we know it.

The Penitentes lash themselves till they run with blood In their efforts to come awake for one moment; To tear the membrane of this sleep ... No good.

The Indians thought the white man would awake them ... And instead, the white men scramble asleep in the mountains, And ride on horseback asleep forever through the desert, And shoot one another, amazed and mad with somnambulism, Thinking death will awaken something ... No good.

Born with a caul, A black membrane over the face, And unable to tear it, Though the mind is awake.

Mountains blanket-wrapped Round the ash-white hearth of the desert; And though the sun leaps like a thing unleashed in the sky They can’t get up, they are under the blanket. _Taos._

AUTUMN AT TAOS

Over the rounded sides of the Rockies, the aspens of autumn, The aspens of autumn, Like yellow hair of a tigress brindled with pins.

Down on my hearth-rug of desert, sage of the mesa, An ash-grey pelt Of wolf all hairy and level, a wolf’s wild pelt.

Trot-trot to the mottled foot-hills, cedar-mottled and piñon; Did you ever see an otter? Silvery-sided, fish-fanged, fierce-faced whiskered, mottled.

When I trot my little pony through the aspen-trees of the canyon, Behold me trotting at ease betwixt the slopes of the golden Great and glistening-feathered legs of the hawk of Horus; The golden hawk of Horus Astride above me.

But under the pines I go slowly As under the hairy belly of a great black bear.

Glad to emerge and look back On the yellow, pointed aspen-trees laid one on another like feathers, Feather over feather on the breast of the great and golden Hawk as I say of Horus.

Pleased to be out in the sage and the pine fish-dotted foothills, Past the otter’s whiskers, On to the fur of the wolf-pelt that strews the plain.

And then to look back to the rounded sides of the squatting Rockies, Tigress brindled with aspen Jaguar-splashed, puma-yellow, leopard-livid slopes of America.

Make big eyes, little pony At all these skins of wild beasts; They won’t hurt you.

Fangs and claws and talons and beaks and hawk-eyes Are nerveless just now. So be easy. _Taos._

SPIRITS SUMMONED WEST

England seems full of graves to me, Full of graves.

Women I loved and cherished, like my mother; Yet I had to tell them to die.

England seems covered with graves to me, Women’s graves.

Women who were gentle And who loved me And whom I loved And told to die.

Women with the beautiful eyes of the old days, Belief in love, and sorrow of such belief. “_Hush, my love, then, hush._ _Hush, and die, my dear!_”

Women of the older generation, who knew The full doom of loving and not being able to take back. Who understood at last what it was to be told to die.

Now that the graves are made, and covered; Now that in England pansies and such-like grow on the graves of women; Now that in England is silence, where before was a moving of soft-skirted women, Women with eyes that were gentle in olden belief in love; Now then that all their yearning is hushed, and covered over with earth.

England seems like one grave to me.

And I, I sit on this high American desert With dark-wrapped Rocky Mountains motionless squatting around in a ring, Remembering I told them to die, to sink into the grave in England, The gentle-kneed women.

So now I whisper: _Come away,_ _Come away from the place of graves, come west,_ _Women,_ _Women whom I loved and told to die._

_Come back to me now,_ _Now the divided yearning is over;_ _Now you are husbandless indeed, no more husband to cherish like a child_ _And wrestle with for the prize of perfect love._ _No more children to launch in a world you mistrust._ _Now you need know in part_ _No longer, or carry the burden of a man on your heart,_ _Or the burden of Man writ large._

_Now you are disemburdened of Man and a man_ _Come back to me._ _Now you are free of the toils of a would-be-perfect love_ _Come to me and be still._

Come back then, you who were wives and mothers And always virgins Overlooked.

Come back then, mother, my love, whom I told to die. It was only I who saw the virgin you That had no home.

The overlooked virgin, My love.

You overlooked her too.

Now that the grave is made of mother and wife, Now that the grave is made and lidded over with turf.

_Come, delicate, overlooked virgin, come back to me_ _And be still,_ _Be glad._

I didn’t tell you to die, for nothing. I wanted the virgin you to be home at last In my heart.

Inside my innermost heart, Where the virgin in woman comes home to a man.

The homeless virgin Who never in all her life could find the way home To that difficult innermost place in a man.

_Now come west, come home,_ _Women I’ve loved for gentleness,_ _For the virginal you._ _Find the way now that you never could find in life,_ _So I told you to die._

Virginal first and last Is woman. _Now at this last, my love, my many a love,_ _You whom I loved for gentleness,_ _Come home to me._

They are many, and I loved them, shall always love them, And they know it, The virgins. And my heart is glad to have them at last.

Now that the wife and mother and mistress is buried in earth, In English earth, _Come home to me, my love, my loves, my many loves,_ _Come west to me_.

For virgins are not exclusive of virgins As wives are of wives; And motherhood is jealous, But in virginity jealousy does not enter. _Taos._

THE AMERICAN EAGLE

The dove of Liberty sat on an egg And hatched another eagle.

But didn’t disown the bird.

_Down with all eagles!_ cooed the Dove. And down all eagles began to flutter, reeling from their perches: Eagles with two heads, eagles with one, presently eagles with none Fell from the hooks and were dead.

Till the American Eagle was the only eagle left in the world.

Then it began to fidget, shifting from one leg to the other, Trying to look like a pelican, And plucking out of his plumage a few loose feathers to feather the nests of all The new naked little republics come into the world.

But the feathers were, comparatively, a mere flea-bite. And the bub-eagle that Liberty had hatched was growing a startling big bird On the roof of the world; A bit awkward, and with a funny squawk in his voice, His mother Liberty trying always to teach him to coo And him always ending with a yawp _Coo! Coo! Coo! Coo-ark! Coo-ark! Quark!! Quark!!_ YAWP!!!

So he clears his throat, the young Cock-eagle!

Now if the lilies of France lick Solomon in all his glory; And the leopard cannot change his spots; Nor the British lion his appetite; Neither can a young Cock-eagle sit simpering With an olive-sprig in his mouth.

It’s not his nature.

The big bird of the Amerindian being the eagle, Red Men still stick themselves over with bits of his fluff, And feel absolutely IT.

So better make up your mind, American Eagle, Whether you’re a sucking dove, _Roo--coo--ooo! Quark! Yawp!!_ Or a pelican Handing out a few loose golden breast-feathers, at moulting time; Or a sort of prosperity-gander Fathering endless ten-dollar golden eggs.

Or whether it actually is an eagle you are, With a Roman nose And claws not made to shake hands with, And a Me-Almighty eye.

The new Proud Republic Based on the mystery of pride. Overweening men, full of power of life, commanding a teeming obedience.

Eagle of the Rockies, bird of men that are masters, Lifting the rabbit-blood of the myriads up into something splendid, Leaving a few bones; Opening great wings in the face of the sheep-faced ewe Who is losing her lamb, Drinking a little blood, and loosing another royalty unto the world.

Is that you, American Eagle?

Or are you the goose that lays the golden egg? Which is just a stone to anyone asking for meat. And are you going to go on for ever Laying that golden egg, That addled golden egg? _Lobo._

End of Project Gutenberg's Birds, Beasts and Flowers, by D. H. Lawrence