Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DAKOTA IDYL, by FANNIE BARRIER WILLIAMS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DAKOTA IDYL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dawn, gray, purple, gold!
Last Line: With the treasure of her heart.
Subject(s): Farewell; Hearts; Love; Native Americans - Women; South Dakota; Parting; Squaws


Dawn, gray, purple, gold!
A wealth of beauty
These moments hold.
Butte faces peer from out the night;
Pinnacles shimmer with coming light;
Billowing miles stretch gray and green;
Trees loom ghost-like in dewy sheen.
Twitter and humming,
A partridge's drumming,
All Nature pulsate.
Stream-flash
And foam-dash,
Grape-scent
With muck blent,
Streaming vines sweeping,
Tendrils upcreeping,
St! mark the watercourse,
Beauty is there.
Standing with a native grace,
Pretty Elk averts her face.
Parted lips and eyes aflame
Tell the thought she dares not name.
Soft his footstep, not a sound
Is betrayed by the ground.
Though she does not see nor hear
Yet she knows her brave is near.
Jauntily his arm he flings,
As a screen his blanket swings.
Sheltered thus and eye to eye,
Once again Love's mystery.
Here by sacred, living pool,
Mid the shadows dark and cool,
Deep in mossy, sunflecked glade,
Tribal "woman's choice" is made.
Shy again she turns her face;
With a pretty woman's grace
Steps out from the sheltering fold,
Walks away calm, haughty, cold;
While the lover, wrapt to heaven,
Waits until a signal given
Tells him that he may depart
With the treasure of her heart.





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