Across The Pampas
Dost thou remember, oh, dost thou remember,
Here as we sit at home and take our rest,
How we went out one morning on a venture
In the West?
Hast thou forgotten, in these English hedgerows,
How the great Pampas rolled out like the sea?
Never a daisy in that mighty meadow!
Never a tree!
Full were our hearts upon that sunny morning;
Stout--handed and stout--hearted went we forth.
The warm wind in our faces breathed us fortune
From the North;
And high in heaven the sun stood for a token.
We had no other sign by which to steer.
No landmark is there in the Earth's great ocean,
For mariner.
Dost thou remember how, when night was falling,
There in the middle plain, as best we might,
We set our little tent up as a fortress
For the night?
Dost thou remember how, through the night watches,
We listened to the voices of the plain,
The owls and plovers and the bold bischachas,
Talking like men?
Drowsy we sat, and watched our horses feeding,
Dim through the night, while over the tent's mouth
The Cross was turning like a clock and reeling
In the South.
But, as the night grew out and we grew chilly,
Under our blankets safe we crept and warm,
Full of good heart and each with loaded pistols
Close to his arm;
And so dreamed pleasant dreams of far off faces,
And trees and fields which we had loved in youth,
All in a maze of present apprehension
Mingled uncouth;
And how we travelled on and ever onwards,
Still in the red path of the setting sun,
Until into the heart of a great woodland
We had come;
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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Added by Poetry Lover
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