Le Marais Du Cygne

A blush as of roses     Where rose never grew!     Great drops on the bunch-grass,     But not of the dew!     A taint in the sweet air     For wild bees to shun!     A stain that shall never     Bleach out in the sun!     Back, steed of the prairies!     Sweet song-bird, fly back!     Wheel hither, bald vulture!     Gray wolf, call thy pack!     The foul human vultures     Have feasted and fled;     The wolves of the Border     Have crept from the dead.     From the hearths of their cabins,     The fields of their corn,     Unwarned and unweaponed,     The victims were torn,     By the whirlwind of murder     Swooped up and swept on     To the low, reedy fen-lands,     The Marsh of the Swan.     With a vain plea for mercy     No stout knee was crooked;     In the mouths of the rifles     Right manly they looked.     How paled the May sunshine,     O Marais du Cygne!     On death for the strong life,     On red grass for green!     In the homes of their rearing,     Yet warm with their lives,     Ye wait the dead only,     Poor children and wives!     Put out the red forge-fire,     The smith shall not come;     Unyoke the brown oxen,     The ploughman lies dumb.     Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,     O dreary death-train,     With pressed lips as bloodless     As lips of the slain!     Kiss down the young eyelids,     Smooth down the gray hairs;     Let tears quench the curses     That burn through your prayers.     Strong man of the prairies,     Mourn bitter and wild!     Wail, desolate woman!     Weep, fatherless child!     But the grain of God springs up     From ashes beneath,     And the crown of his harvest     Is life out of death.     Not in vain on the dial     The shade moves along,     To point the great contrasts     Of right and of wrong:     Free homes and free altars,     Free prairie and flood,     The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,     Whose bloom is of blood!     On the lintels of Kansas     That blood shall not dry;     Henceforth the Bad Angel     Shall harmless go by;     Henceforth to the sunset,     Unchecked on her way,     Shall Liberty follow     The march of the day