Classic Poem

Going, the wild things of our land.
Passing, the antelope and the buffalo.
They have gone with the sunny sweep
Of the untracked plain.
They have passed away with the untrammeled
Current of our streams.

With the falling trees they fell,
With the autumn grasses they rotted,
And their bones
Lie white on the flame-charred sod,
Mixed with the antlers of the elk.

For centuries they lay down and rose
In peace and calm content.
They were fed by the rich grass
And watered by sunny streams.
The plover called to them
Out of the shimmering air,
The hawk swooped above them,
The blackbirds sat on their backs
In the still afternoons;
In the cool mud they wallowed,
Rolling in noisy sport.

They lived through centuries of struggle —
In swarming millions — till the white man came.
The snows of winter were terrible,
The dry wind was hard to bear,
But the breath of man, the smoke
Of his gun were more fatal.

They fell by the thousands.
They melted away like smoke.
Mile by mile they retreated westward;
Year by year they moved north and south
In dust-brown clouds;
Each year they descended upon the plains
In endless floods;
Each winter they retreated to the hills
Of the south.
Their going was like the ocean current,
But each spring they stopped a little short —
They were like an ebbing tide.
They came at last to meager little bands
That never left the hills —
Crawling in somber files from canyon to canyon —
Now, they are gone!