V
Still do the valley’s ancient hills,
Oblivious of man’s passing years,
Renew their bloom with the summer sun
And gloam with gray cloud-fallen tears:
Above their purple crests still climb
The storm’s dark streamers ’thwart the heaven——
Like ghosts of old marauders come
Bright-arrowed with the jagged levin:
And still upon the mesa top
The dead pueblo’s ruined walls
Flare back defiance where the light
In crimson splendor o’er them falls:
About the plaza strewn with shards
Like phantom footsteps fitful go
The phantom winds and idly shift
The downs of thistles to and fro:
And sway the purple huaco’s spires,
And bend the sunflower’s yellow head
O’er wild verbenas lavender
And Indian paintbrush saffron-red:
And ruffle faint the placid pool
That gathers on the kiva’s floor
To mirror still the cloudy forms
Pictured upon its walls of yore:
While in the chambers long untrod
The broken vigas and the clay
Imprinted with the builder’s hand
Yet crumble in their slow decay:
And underneath the mounded stones
That mark the ancient wall and keep,
With gaud and trinket nigh their bones,
Do they that builded sleep their sleep:
There, warded by the broken church
And tumulus that bears the Rood,
Rememberless the ruins lie,
Dead, mid the valley’s solitude:
Above them, with his pinions spread
Majestic in his noiseless flight,
The Eagle wheels; then soars him far
To vanish in the western night.