Painted and feathered in hostile design,

Indian chief on the marching line!

Arctic Gentian.

Beyond the reach of the timberline,

The long trail lifting, lifting,

Past wizened gardens of low gaunt pine,

Crouching out of the great storm’s path:

The last tree flees from the arctic wrath,

But on is the white trail lifting.

Cities and rivers and fields beseem

A fantasy, fading, fading,

Lost away in the myth of a dream:

And the wide land reaches beyond our eyes,

A Navajo carpet of strange soft dyes:

Patterned with cities the great web lies,

Woven with fantasies, fading.

Rolls in the tide and the cloud waves toss,

The reach of the long land merging:

Where the still white surges part and cross

The quivering vistas seem to be

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