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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SILHOUETTE, by EMILY PAULINE JOHNSON Poet's Biography
First Line: The sky-line melts from the russet into blue
Last Line: Out mutely that naught else to him remains.
Alternate Author Name(s): Tekahionwake
Subject(s): Change; Native Americans; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America
First Line: The sky-line melts from the russet into blue
Last Line: Out mutely that naught else to him remains.
Alternate Author Name(s): Tekahionwake
Subject(s): Change; Native Americans; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America
THE sky-line melts from the russet into blue,
Unbroken the horizon, saving where
A wreath of smoke curls up the far, thin air,
And points the distant lodges of the Sioux.
Etched where the lands and cloudlands touch and die
A solitary Indian tepee stands,
The only habitation of these lands,
That roll their magnitude from sky to sky.
The tent poles lift and loom in thin relief,
The upward floating smoke ascends between,
And near the open doorway, gaunt and lean,
And shadow-like, there stands an Indian Chief.
With eyes that lost their lustre long ago,
With visage fixed and stern as fate's decree,
He looks towards the empty west, to see
The never-coming herd of buffalo.
Only the bones that bleach upon the plains,
Only the fleshless skeletons that lie
In ghastly nakedness and silence, cry
Out mutely that naught else to him remains.
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