Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPIRIT MOUNTAIN, by JESSIE M. GILMORE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPIRIT MOUNTAIN, by                    
First Line: The shadow of mount harney, when the twilight fell
Last Line: May speak in unknown tongues to unknown races.
Subject(s): Legends, Native American


The shadow of Mount Harney, when the twilight fell,
Came creeping out along the granite ridges,
(According to the legends the old Indians tell)
And walked with evening, over live pine bridges,
Across the hill-tops to the open prairie lands,
And where it passed the browns and purples faded
From thousands of green-girdled hills, wiped out by hands
Of darkness; grew diminished, dim and shaded.
It lingered, for a moment, where the plains ran down
Beyond the foot-hills to the buffalo ranges,
Then settled on them like some giant monster's frown
That day's sweet harmony of light estranges.
The earth-gods hid themselves in solitary trees,
And watched, with fear, the shadow's onward coming,
As tho the Phantom Mountain ruled earth's destinies;
The little winds went scurrying and humming
Among the grasses; the meadow-larks forgot to call;
The Cheyenne River's ribboned gleam and glisten
Were swallowed up, and where the many-colored wall
Of Bad Lands reared, the chalk-clay seemed to listen
To some old voice remembered from a vanished day.
A dazzling, flame-lit shaft of gorgeous yellow
Flung one long, piercing, irridescent, mystic ray,
From sunset's glow, just turning soft and mellow,
Into the sky. The Mountain Shadow lifted up,
And followed where the burnished finger pointed,
Then rose above it ... poised in the inverted cup
Of Heaven ... Spirit Mountain ... Ghost that haunted
The prairie skies ... weird Phantom of the wilderness;
The worshipped Manitou of old tradition;
Huge ... Grand ... and Terrible ... suspended, motionless,
Above the earth.
The sunset's swift transition
Erased the arm of yellow light ... Ghost Mountain died;
Was intermingled with the saffron tinted,
Illumined afterglow.
The Indians deified
Mount Harney. All the Black Hill's gold, since minted,
Could not have bought the Sacred Mountain, for it spoke
To something sweet and child-like in their spirit.
Today ... it speaks not to them thru the watch-fire's smoke,
Or ... if it speaks ... they can no longer hear it;
For White Men's god of gold stole their god's templed home,
And White Men's magic wrought the Great Stone Faces
On Rushmore's granite brow, that long, long years to come,
May speak in unknown tongues to unknown races.





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