Iii

Who is it hunts with his dog There where the heron is flying Gray through the feathering fog Over the Fork, where is lying, Bridge-like, a butternut log, There where the horsemint is drying?

Who is it hunts in the brush, Under the linns and the beeches, Here where the water-falls rush, Dark, where the noon never reaches? Here where the Fork is one crush Of flags with a bloom like the peach’s?

He is handsome and supple and tall, Blond-haired and vigorous-chested, Blue-eyed as the bud by the fall Where he listens,--his rifle half rested, Half leaned on the crumbling stone wall,-- Whose briers he lately has breasted.

He waits; and the sun on the dew Of the cedars and leaves of the bushes Strikes glittering frostiness through ... If a covey of partridges flushes What good will a Winchester do, Or the dog to his feet that he crushes?

Then a man breaks strong through the weeds Where the buck-bushes toss and the spires Of the white-blossomed cohosh; ’mid reeds Wild-carrots, and trammelling briers: It is he! to his loved one who speeds-- And the man in the bushes--he fires....

From leaves of the wind-shaken wood The dew of the dawn is still falling: He is gone from the place where he stood, Just there where the black crow is calling: There is blood on the weeds: is it blood On the face of the man who is crawling?

Red blood or a smudge of the dawn?-- Now he lies with his gray eyes wide, staring, Stiff, still at the sun: he has drawn His limbs in a heap: and the faring Bee-martins light near or pass on, Not one of them knowing or caring.

It is noon: and the wood-dove is deep In the calm of its cooing: and over The tops of the forest trees sweep The shadows of buzzards that hover: Wide-winged they sail on as asleep: And the bob-white is whistling from cover.

It is dusk: and the heat, that made wilt The leaves and the wildflowers’ faces, Gives place to the dew-drops that tilt With coolness the weeds where are traces Of horror and darkness and guilt, That nothing can wash from those places.

It is night: and the hoot-owlet mocks The dove of the day with wild weeping, The Fork is scarce heard on its rocks Where the man is so quietly sleeping: Through the woods snaps the bark of a fox; The lightning is fitfully leaping.