Captive of the White City, The
Why is the captive here?
Is the hour of the Lord so near
When slayer and slain shall meet
In the place of the Judgment seat
For the word of the last decree?
Ah, what is the word to be?
For the beautiful City stands
On the Red Man’s wrested lands, **
The home of the fated race;
And the ghostly shadow falls
Over the trophied walls ***
Of the House of the Unhewn Tree,
In the pleasant Midway Place.
There is blood on the broken door,
Ther is blood on the broken floor,
Blood on your bronzed hands,
O Rain-in-the-Face.
Shut from the sunlit air,
Like a sun-god overthrown,
The soldier, Custer, lies.
Dust is the sun-kissed hair,
Dust are the dauntless eyes,
Dust and name alone; -
While the wife holds watch with grief
For the never-returning chief.
What if she walked to-day
In the City’s pleasant way,
The beautiful Midway Place,
And there to her sudden gaze,
Dimmed with her widow’s tears,
After the terrible years,
Stood Rain-in-the-Face! And the throngs go up, go down,
In the streets of the wonderful town;
And jests of the merry tongue,
And the dance, and the glad songs sung,
Ring through the sunlit space.
And there, in the wild, free breeze,
In the House of the Unhewn Trees,
In the beautiful Midway Place,
The captive sits apart,
Silent, and makes no sign.
But what is the word in your heart,
O man of a dying race?
What tale on your lips for mine,
O Rain-in-the-Face?