V

Still do the valley’s ancient hills, Oblivious of man’s passing years, Renew their bloom with the summer sun And gloam with gray cloud-fallen tears:

Above their purple crests still climb The storm’s dark streamers ’thwart the heaven---- Like ghosts of old marauders come Bright-arrowed with the jagged levin:

And still upon the mesa top The dead pueblo’s ruined walls Flare back defiance where the light In crimson splendor o’er them falls:

About the plaza strewn with shards Like phantom footsteps fitful go The phantom winds and idly shift The downs of thistles to and fro:

And sway the purple huaco’s spires, And bend the sunflower’s yellow head O’er wild verbenas lavender And Indian paintbrush saffron-red:

And ruffle faint the placid pool That gathers on the kiva’s floor To mirror still the cloudy forms Pictured upon its walls of yore:

While in the chambers long untrod The broken vigas and the clay Imprinted with the builder’s hand Yet crumble in their slow decay:

And underneath the mounded stones That mark the ancient wall and keep, With gaud and trinket nigh their bones, Do they that builded sleep their sleep:

There, warded by the broken church And tumulus that bears the Rood, Rememberless the ruins lie, Dead, mid the valley’s solitude:

Above them, with his pinions spread Majestic in his noiseless flight, The Eagle wheels; then soars him far To vanish in the western night.