Four stalwart Indians keep rhythmic step. On their strong shoulders they bear a frail casket. Four tall men go before them. They, too, keep rhythmic step. They bear floral offerings, wreaths and sheaves of bloom. The men mourners follow. They keep rhythmic step While the tear-bottles of their hearts fill silently, Ever so silently. The women! Where are they? She who bore the child? They, too, who loved it? Do they sit within a thatch-roofed, adobe hut? Do they hear the echo of the hammer, Metal tapping metal, metal tapping metal, Metal tapping metal, As when the braves fashioned the casket, As when each tap mangled the mother's heart? Rhythmically the procession moves on to a distant hillside beyond Victoria. There, leaves sing lullabies While birds trill melodies above the deep silence of the sleepers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALFRED MOIR by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE SUICIDE by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY SONNET: 35 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE WINDS OF FATE by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX FROM A YOUNG WOMAN TO AN OLD OFFICER WHO COURTED HER by ELIZABETH FRANCES AMHERST |