The Pottery Peddler

I saw him with his pack of wares, Spoil of an ancient craft,---- His body supple as the bow After the true-sped shaft:

I liked the weave of banded wool That girt him at the thighs; I liked the glint of gaudy things That filled me with surmise:

The abalone at his ears, His beaded turquoise string; The kerchief round his glossy hair---- Red on a blackbird’s wing:

I liked the silver where its hue Shone on his earth-brown skin, And, oh, his patient eyes I liked, All smouldering within.

I saw him loping up the road Made by the white man’s hand: His step was soundless, and he seemed A phantom in the land.

I saw him on a white man’s street---- And, lo, the street was gone A century of centuries While still mine eyes looked on!

And I beheld him, lithe and proud, Chief upon plain and hill,---- The eagle was his panoply, The mountain lion his kill:

About him thronged his earth-brown kin, Rhythmic with the drum,---- I saw their gleaming feathers And their bright musicians come:

I saw them with their patterned robes, Their glint of gaudy things, Their greens, their reds, their silver whites, Their dangles and their rings:

A century of centuries While still mine eyes looked on: An Indian--and the white man’s street Ten thousand years agone!

But yesterday its people passed Into their silence and their night, Leaving their broken walls to glow Encrimsoned by the shafted light. ]