Classic Poem

'Twas silent below on the desert
Where the night comes swift and strange,
And a deadly pall hung over all
From the top of the Funeral Range.
Startling and clear, the sibilant hiss
Of a rattlesnake's slithering tone;
Not a creature stirred, nor the sound of a bird;
Death Valley was holding its own.

High o'er the crest of the Panamint peaks
The ghost of a whispering breeze;
And its wavering breath, in the valley of death,
Seems weird and ill at ease.
Brilliantly shining the stars disappear,
And the mountains stand sombre and grand;
Till the blazing sun, on its endless run,
Bursts forth o'er the shimmering sand.

Like spirits they come — a beast and man,
With painful gait, and slow.
For the canteens clink in the burning sink,
And the animal's ears hang low.
The man staggers forward calling to God,
Then drops with a whimpering moan;
The burro faint calls, stumbles and falls,
But Death Valley answers alone.

A lizard circles an arc below,
And a vulture overhead;
The poison air drifts here and there
From the pits of the borax bed.
The Palo Verdes and Yucca Palms
Stand guard with the Joshua trees
But the sun glares bright on the skeletons white
With a vigil that never may cease.

And this is the price of the quest for gold
By saddle and frying pan,
The rustling tones of the bleaching bones
And the crumbling skull of a man.
Slowly the sun tips the Panamint peaks
For the space of a fleeting breath,
Then follows its rays in a crimson haze.
'Tis night in the Valley of Death.