| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 1394. The Ute Lover |
| | | By Hamlin Garland |
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| BENEATH the burning brazen sky, | |
| The yellowed tepees stand. | |
| Not far away a singing river | |
| Sets through the sand. | |
| Within the shadow of a lonely elm tree | 5 |
| The tired ponies keep. | |
| The wild land, throbbing with the sun’s hot magic, | |
| Is rapt as sleep. | |
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| From out a clump of scanty willows | |
| A low wail floats,— | 10 |
| The endless repetition of a lover’s | |
| Melancholy notes, | |
| So sad, so sweet, so elemental, | |
| All lovers’ pain | |
| Seems borne upon its sobbing cadence,— | 15 |
| The love-song of the plain. | |
| From frenzied cry forever falling, | |
| To the wind’s wild moan, | |
| It seems the voice of anguish calling | |
| Alone! alone! | 20 |
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| Caught from the winds forever moaning | |
| On the plain, | |
| Wrought from the agonies of woman | |
| In maternal pain, | |
| It holds within its simple measure | 25 |
| All death of joy, | |
| Breathed though it be by smiling maiden | |
| Or lithe brown boy. | |
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| It hath this magic, sad though its cadence | |
| And short refrain— | 30 |
| It helps the exiled people of the mountain | |
| Endure the plain; | |
| For when at night the stars a-glitter | |
| Defy the moon, | |
| The maiden listens, leans to seek her lover | 35 |
| Where waters croon. | |
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| Flute on, O lithe and tuneful Utah,— | |
| Reply, brown jade; | |
| There are no other joys secure to either | |
| Man or maid. | 40 |
| Soon you are old and heavy-hearted, | |
| Lost to mirth; | |
| While on you lies the white man’s gory | |
| Greed of earth. | |
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| Strange that to me that burning desert | 45 |
| Seems so dear. | |
| The endless sky and lonely mesa, | |
| Flat and drear, | |
| Calls me, calls me as the flute of Utah | |
| Calls his mate,— | 50 |
| This wild, sad, sunny, brazen country, | |
| Hot as hate. | |
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| Again the glittering sky uplifts star-blazing; | |
| Again the stream | |
| From out the far-off snowy mountains | 55 |
| Sings through my dream; | |
| And on the air I hear the flute-voice calling | |
| The lover’s croon, | |
| And see the listening, longing maiden | |
| Lit by the moon. | 60 |
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