Classic Poem

Never a man in Bates or Cass
Could stand the force of his swinging blow.
Many a trim Missouri lass
Rued his wooing in shame and woe:
He cared for nothing on earth below;
He dreaded nothing in heaven above;
His wrath was deadly to friend or foe,
But deadlier still was his evil love.

Neither a Reb nor a Yank was he,
But a bushwhacker, bred to trick and trade;
For well he loved the lord to be
Of his own true rifle and bowie-blade.
And when he rode with his reckless band,
Whisky-wild and mad for a fray,
You had thought him the son of an older land,
The robber-chief of an earlier day.

But there came a time when the war was o'er,
And neighbor and brother could meet once more,
Together warm by the fireside glow,
Clear together the winter snow,
Reap together, together sow,
And all with only a passing frown
Or a brawl in harvest-field or town
(The petty quarrels of daily life),
To tell of the vanished years of strife.
Peace had returned to the hearts of men,
All save the spirit of Border Ben.

But he for many another day
Rode and rieved at his own wild will,
Bearing ever his luckless prey
To the cabin under the rounding hill,
For the law was weak, and his arm was strong.
Men talked of lynching,—and was it wrong?
But others counselled to bide their time,
As the Chilian watches, still and long,
Waiting and waiting in hope to lime
The condor-king of his mountain clime,
And none was ready to lead the throng.

'Twas a luckless day that threw in his way
Willoughby's Fan, on her snowy mare,
Willoughby's Fan! Mortal man
Never saw feature or form more fair.
After the backwoods fashion dressed,
With hands, and feet to the ankle, bare,
A straw sun-bonnet that lay at rest
On a rippling river of golden hair,
And over her limbs and over her breast
A gown of calico, clinging there;

And still the truest of head and heart,
The sweetest, the purest, the dearest girl,
Scarcely as yet a full-blown woman!
With a face that smiled as the waters curl,
And a voice that soothed as the waters purl,
And lips that parted as lovers part,—
Thoroughly good and kind and human!

I cannot tell you just how he found her,—
Her sturdy, hearty, and daring brother,—
But all the grasses and green things round her
Were rudely trampled and overturned.
Her breath came in gasps, like a nightmare smother,
Or a fitful wind through a stifling pall,
And wild was her bosom's rise and fall,
As the flickering light of a dying spark,
And on her throat was a fearful mark,
A purple mark that throbbed and burned,—
The mark of a sinewy male right hand.

She lay in the shade of the moist woodland.
High overhead the branches sighed,
And the golden-shaft drummed and the wood-tapper cried,
And flowerets round her pretty feet
Bowed in sympathy sad and sweet
For the little, pitiful, human flower,
Fragrant and fit for a king to cherish,
Plucked for less than a forceful hour
And flung by the wayside there, to perish.

“Poor little Fannie!”—Dan burst forth—
“Who is the fiend that has done this thing?
I'll follow him to the end of the earth;
I'll teach him how border bullets sting;
I'll send him down to the flames of hell!
Yes, God above us in yonder sky,
You God who looked on this lonesome dell
And saw what happened when none was nigh,—
Saw it and knew it, and would not save!—
By You I swear, whatever You are,
To hound that devil into his grave,
To send him down to his hellish den.
—But tell me, sister, the villain's name.”
Faltering faintly the answer came,
With a gush of tears and of lambent shame,
Of shame and sorrow and pain and dread,
As half arising she bowed her head.
Sobbing and weeping she answered, “Ben.”

It was night, black night, when they reached the farm,
And she slid from her hold on her brother's arm,
And forward fell at her mother's feet,
Anxiously coming her child to greet,
At the feet of her mother and gray-haired sire
Bent and broken by toil and age;
And Dan found words in his strangling ire—
Hoarse words, harsh muttered and dense with rage—
To tell the story of Ben's desire,
To hint the whole of that fearful harm.
“But as sure as ever there's God in the skies,
I'll hunt that devil till one of us dies.”

There came a knock at the door.
Forward he stepped and flung it open.
By a sudden flash was the darkness broken.
Followed a sharp quick “Spang!”
Then a loud laugh outrang.
Young Willoughby lay on the floor.
And over the threshold, beside the corse,
By the bridle still holding his peering horse,
A revolver smoking yet in his hand,
And looking as when he led his band,
Proud with the pride of the devil's den,
Strode handsome, hideous Border Ben.
He gazed a moment with mocking leer,
He spoke a moment with cruel jeer,
Then turned and leaped to saddle, and then
Vanished out of their stricken sight,
Wildly galloping through the night.
That was the night of his evil star,
For Border Ben had gone too far.
With a thirsty glare that craved his blood,
That star came dancing through the wood,
And out on the prairie where all was still
Save the cricket's chirp and the whippoorwill—
It had grown to a torch of fire:
And under its smoky, billowy light
A score of horsemen rode that night,

With brows that knotted and hands that clenched.
And if so be there were cheeks that blenched,
They were not fully revealed to sight,—
Nought was revealed but ire.

Alone and hopeless and brought to bay,—
They had trailed him to his lair,—
Sustained by only the thirst to slay,
And scorn for the men who had been his prey,
He fought like a grizzly bear.
Every stroke claimed limb or life;
Every thrust of his ghastly knife
Sent plashing on the slippery floor
Pool after pool of human gore.
But at last he was stunned and tied.
Powerless longer to work them harm,
And spouting crimson from head and arm,
They hurried him then outside.

They bore him off to the neighboring wood,
Conscious, but weak from the loss of blood,
Sullen and silent, but all uncowed
In the midst of that jeering harrying crowd,
Without a fear or a thought of hope,
Or a glance at that heaven whose boundless scope
Spread so grandly over them all,
That heaven reserved for his only pall,
His only coffin and shroud and bier,
The only source from which a tear
Could ever fall on his blanching heart,
Without a tremor, or sob, or start,
Without a sorrow, without a prayer,
He went with his executioners there.

Down in the woodlands, sombre and dim,
A rope was hanging over a limb:
The noose at the end had been made for him.

They triced him up, and they swung him off.
A sudden spasm; a gurgling cough;
A furious wrenching his hands to free;
Feet that kicked from the doubling knee;
Eyes that bulged in the dark unviewed;
Bowed neck and straightening attitude;
And then a tremor, and then, and then—
That was the last of Border Ben.