Coyote

Blown out of the prairie in twilight and dew,
Half bold and half timid, yet lazy all through;
Loath ever to leave, and yet fearful to stay,
He limps in the clearing, an outcast in gray.

A shade on the stubble, a ghost by the wall,
Now leaping, now limping, now risking a fall,
Lop-eared and large-jointed, but ever alway
A thoroughly vagabond outcast in gray.

Here, Carlo, old fellow, hes one of your kind,
Go, seek him, and bring him in out of the wind.
What! snarling, my Carlo! So even dogs may
Deny their own kin in the outcast in gray.

Well, take what you will, though it be on the sly,
Marauding or begging, I shall not ask why,
But will call it a dole, just to help on his way
A four-footed friar in orders of gray!

Bret Harte

Bret Harte was an American author and poet, renowned for his works about pioneering life in California. Born on August 25, 1836, he gained national fame with his short stories and poetry depicting life in the early mining camps. His most famous works include 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat.' Harte's writings played a crucial role in shaping the Western genre in American literature. He passed away on May 5, 1902.

Bret Harte

Seventy-Nine

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

Lines to a Portrait, by a Superior Person

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

California Madrigal

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

The Ritualist

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

English

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Grizzly

Coward, of heroic size,
In whose lazy muscles lies
Strength we fear and yet despise;
Savage, whose relentless tusks
Are content with acorn husks;
Robber, whose exploits neer soared
Oer the bees or squirrels hoard;
Whiskered chin and feeble nose,
Claws of steel on baby toes,
Here, in solitude and shade,
Shambling, shuffling plantigrade,
Be thy courses undismayed!

Here, where Nature makes thy bed,
Let thy rude, half-human tread
Point to hidden Indian springs,
Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses,
Hovered oer by timid wings,
Where the wood-duck lightly passes,
Where the wild bee holds her sweets,
Epicurean retreats,
Fit for thee, and better than
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In thy fat-jowled deviltry
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Crotalus

No life in earth, or air, or sky;
The sunbeams, broken silently,
On the bared rocks around me lie,

Cold rocks with half-warmed lichens scarred,
And scales of moss; and scarce a yard
Away, one long strip, yellow-barred.

Lost in a cleft! Tis but a stride
To reach it, thrust its roots aside,
And lift it on thy stick astride!

Yet stay! That moment is thy grace!
For round thee, thrilling air and space,
A chattering terror fills the place!

A sound as of dry bones that stir
In the dead Valley! By yon fir
The locust stops its noonday whir!

The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,
As if by bullet brought to ground,
On broken wing, dips, wheeling round!

The hare, transfixed, with trembling lip,
Halts, breathless, on ...

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The Hawks Nest

We checked our pace, the red road sharply rounding;
We heard the troubled flow
Of the dark olive depths of pines resounding
A thousand feet below.

Above the tumult of the canyon lifted,
The gray hawk breathless hung,
Or on the hill a winged shadow drifted
Where furze and thorn-bush clung;

Or where half-way the mountain side was furrowed
With many a seam and scar;
Or some abandoned tunnel dimly burrowed,
A mole-hill seen so far.

We looked in silence down across the distant
Unfathomable reach:
A silence broken by the guides consistent
And realistic speech.

Walker of Murphys blew a hole through Peters
For telling him he lied;
Then up and dusted out of South Hornitos
Across the Long Divide.

We ran him out of St...

Bret Harte

Jack of the Tules

Shrewdly you question, Senor, and I fancy
You are no novice. Confess that to little
Of my poor gossip of Mission and Pueblo
You are a stranger!

Am I not right? Ah! believe me, that ever
Since we joined company at the posada
Ive watched you closely, and pardon an old priest
Ive caught you smiling!

Smiling to hear an old fellow like me talk
Gossip of pillage and robbers, and even
Air his opinion of law and alcaldes
Like any other!

Now! by that twist of the wrist on the bridle,
By that straight line from the heel to the shoulder,
By that curt speech, nay! nay! no offense, son,
You are a soldier?

No? Then a man of affairs? San Sebastian!
Twould serve me right if I prattled thus wildly
To say a sheriff? No? just caballero?
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Bret Harte

San Francisco

Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,
Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O Warder of two continents!

And, scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.

O lions whelp, that hidest fast
In jungle growth of spire and mast!

I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard high lust and willful deed,

And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material.

Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!

Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

H...

Bret Harte

The Wolf

Like a grey shadow lurking in the light,
He ventures forth along the edge of night;
With silent foot he scouts the coulie's rim
And scents the carrion awaiting him.
His savage eyeballs lurid with a flare
Seen but in unfed beasts which leave their lair
To wrangle with their fellows for a meal
Of bones ill-covered. Sets he forth to steal,
To search and snarl and forage hungrily;
A worthless prairie vagabond is he.
Luckless the settler's heifer which astray
Falls to his fangs and violence a prey;
Useless her blatant calling when his teeth
Are fast upon her quivering flank - beneath
His fell voracity she falls and dies
With inarticulate and piteous cries,
Unheard, unheeded in the barren waste,
To be devoured with savage greed and haste.
Up the horizon on...

Emily Pauline Johnson